You should check out a blog that one of my buddies writes for NACLA on the portrayal of Chavez in the US media.
Manufacturing Contempt: http://nacla.org/node/8088.
I agree that our portrayal of Chavez is overly negative and we still need to acknowledge his right to exist as a democratic actor. But what's most important is to understand both the good and evil he has created. The mainstream media rarely reports on the improvements that Chavez made for Venezuela's long ignored majority. Meanwhile, alternative media often underplays Chavez's use of personalism and his less than responsible monetary management. We need to realize that Chavez is not all bad, but also not all good.
What we do hear about though, and what really matters behind all the polemical hooplah is the relationship of codependency between the US and Venezuela. Chavez may say he smells sulfur wafting from the White House, and the US may report on the ills of his government, but at the end of the day we remain connected by oil and money: http://www.ipsnews.net/2012/02/venezuela-us-joined-by-black-gold/. Socialism for the 21st Century runs on the US dollar and our cars run on Venezuelan oil. Our refineries are even specially tooled to handle the rough Maracaibo crude.