chavez is yet another in a long line of latin american leaders who have attempted to stand up to the united states and have brought down the usual range of hostility on themselves as a result. of course, things are more complicated because the us vs. the people of latin america thing is more complicated--so the fact that you see ferocious opposition to chavez amongst upper-class conservative-to-fascist (depending on your information and your viewpoint) types is not surprising. a cynical fellow might see in chavez's use of the united states a kind of cheap political move--but that cynical fellow would have to be completely oblivious to the very real consequences of the present class arrangement--which is modelled on (directly and indirectly, that is materially in some ways, ideologically on others) the american colonial format--the types of class alliance that typically constitute the social expression of american domination on the one hand, and those which oppose it on the other.
then there's the oil. even if chavez didnt fit into a longer historical continuum, his actions re. the oil industry would engender a certain sustained snippiness amongst the american economic oligarchy--one which runs quite a bit beyond the (ever shrinking) cadre of neo-cons, who distinguish themselves in this respect mostly because of the baldness of their justifiations for us colonialism in latin america. i mean, it's not as if the united states has only started seeing in oil streams a "vital national interest" important enough for lots of poorer folk to die over with george w bush---who, as much as i detest him, remains in some ways at least a simple expression of the logic of american foreign policy as a whole. you really should read some history of the us-latin american relation that extends back before 2000, if you havent.
btw here's a great film about the coup attempt, shot in situ by an irish tv crew:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363510/
well worth watching and jammed with far more information than any series of posts could possibly give re chavez and the class dynamics in venezuela (well, mostly caracas and a few outlying areas)