Larry King remembers Chavez to be 'extraordinarily easy to like

Former CNN anchor Larry King writes in the Huffington Post on his 2009 interview with the now dead Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez:

I was surprised when I met Chavez. He was engaging. When he walked into the room, he was laughing and singing. He spoke English and we talked baseball for a few minutes. For someone who didn't like the American leadership or our country, he certainly followed American baseball and knew everything about it. For about five or ten minutes we chatted, while the crew finished setting up for the interview. ...

I found him conflicting. In a strange way, he was extraordinarily easy to like, but of course many people -- both good and bad -- who rise to prominence can be that way. Chavez was larger than life. He was very engaging.

Had he been an American politician, Democrat or Republican, he probably would have been very successful.