::I do agree with Flanker that he meant rude, for two reasons:  1) he isn't known for having the, um, most polished speech with a great variety of vocabulary, and 2) the commonest usage of "rudo" in Venezuela is rude, regardless of what dicitionaries say.  A person who has the kind of unpolished speech and vocabulary that Chavez has would probably say "brusco" if he meant something like toughest.  WGee, there's probably not a lot of world leaders who speak as poorly and colloquially as Chavez does:  in fact, I think our article refers to this.  He speaks to his audience, and he uses common and vulgar language.  Have you ever read the things he really said about Condi Rice?  At any rate, I think we're nit-picking here.  The Post may have translated wrong (maybe the used the same dictionary as you -), but the context is still the same.