Ana Menendez 1, Hardliners 0

The Wednesday Herald has news of an apparent climbdown by the hard-line Cuban exiles. It’s a a stunning vindication for Miami Herald columnist Ana Menendez, a blow to the Bushes, Jeb and George both, a big knock out of the Cuba Liberty Council. And is it light -- or lights out -- at the end of the tunnel for the Miami port tunnel? This is an interesting time to be living in South Florida. Change is in the air. And of course they bury the news in the Metro section.

Here’s a link to Wednesday’s story.

Don’t neglect to click on the link in Herald Extras to Ignacio Sanchez’s letter of resignation. It rambles on for three pages including a screed on legal issues of 1770, with a little fantasy thrown in asserting that Ms. Menendez wanted to “goad” the Cuba Liberty Council into taking a position at odds with the Helms-Burton Act. At the very end, he resigns from the CLC board he was instrumental in founding.

Here’s a link to Ms. Menendez’s column of Wednesday May 16, where she indulged in a clearly ironic use of a phrase Fidel Castro likes to use. Giving the hardliners an excuse to say harsh things about her.
A sample of some of the comment after that column.

In her column on Sunday May 27 Ms. Menendez laid out her bona fides as a Cuban whose family has suffered, and she asked for an end to the “acts of repudiation” that attack those who disagree with the hardliners.

A lot of reading. There’s a lesson herein on the difference between the letter and spirit of a law (Helms-Burton), and the need for civil discourse in our politics, both local and national, where character assassination is the mode of the day.