The End of the End of the Revolution - Castro's Cuba at 50 - NYTimes.com

It's sneaking up on me that we're a few weeks from the 50th anniversary of Castro. What to do about it? Read stuff about Cuba. I'm recommending one good summary of the Cuba situation in the Sunday NY Times magazine:

The End of the End of the Revolution - Castro's Cuba at 50 - NYTimes.com

You can read and read and not find a whole lot of new information. Toward the end I found a nugget in this:

Cuba is some way down Obama’s priority list. But early in his presidency, another Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, did something that changed views of him in the hemisphere: he negotiated, against all the odds, the transfer of sovereignty over the Panama Canal to Panama. It seems clear enough that a breakthrough of similar proportions with Cuba would bring a major reconciliation with Latin America.

Cry foul: Lincoln Diaz-Balart won't debate Raul Martinez

Sorry, little mistake in the headline. Replace the word foul with fowl, for chicken. That's should be the modifier for Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who's not up to the challenge of meeting his challenger in the debate arena.

Close readers of this blog may remember back on Sept. 10 when there was a post reporting at least two debates scheduled between the rubber-stamp incumbent and the Democratic contender for FL-21's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The post quoted from the Miami Herald column by Channel 10's respected political reporter Michael Putney, who was himself to be moderator or co-moderator of two debates between Martinez and L. Diaz-Balart.

Sorry to report now that the Martinez campaign says it's all off. As I suspected back on Sept. 10. Too good to be true. The Diaz-Balarts never have the fortitude to meet a challenger.

Last night I was at a fundraiser for Annette Taddeo, challenging Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-18, and a welcome guest was Joe Garcia, who's running against Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25. No surprise to hear both Annette and Joe report no luck in enticing their opponents to debate. They may hint at this date or that, only to pull back.

Why do they do this? My guess is that they may fool some few voters who will approvingly remember the little news story saying the Republicans had agreed to debate, but not see the one reporting the debate had been called off.

Thanks to the Raul Martinez campaign for rounding up links to various news stories about the "debates," as follows:

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/692549.html

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/09/get-ready-to-ru.html

http://www.local10.com/editorials/17503337/detail.html

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/09/channel-10-miam.html

2 Debates on between Raul Martinez and Lincoln Diaz-Balart

Mark your calendars: Oct. 8 and Oct. 31, the dates for debates between Democratic challenger Raul Martinez and Republican rubber-stamp Lincoln Diaz-Balart, FL-21.

I’m a little surprised. Didn’t figure Diaz-Balart would ever agree to it. What does this mean for the two other congressional races in South Florida, Annette Taddeo vs. rubber-stamp Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in FL-18 and Joe Garcia vs. rubber-stamp Mario Diaz-Balart in FL-25? Will the Democratic challengers finally have something to debate other than the empty chair at the many forums where they appear?

Michael Putney’s column in the Miami Herald gives a thorough rundown of the issues between Raul Martinez and Lincoln Diaz-Balart. Highly recommended reading. Putney is to moderate the first debate, sponsored by the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, and co-moderate the second, sponsored by the Latin Builders Association, with Myriam Marquez of the Miami Herald. Putney also hopes to host a debate on his ABC Channel 10 at a date to be determined.

Meanwhile, the Martinez campaign calls attention to a Herald column by the afore-mentioned Myrian Marquez urging that the United States ease restrictions on Castro’s Cuba to let more hurricane aid through.

Raul Martinez made that suggestion himself as Cuba reeled from the impact of Gustav, and now that Ike has caused even more damage in Cuba – as well as Haiti and elsewhere in the Carribean – the needs are even greater.

Marquez writes:

No one with any sense is saying dump the Cuba embargo and kiss up to the Castros. But what's so wrong with a 90-day window for Cuban exiles to rush to their families left behind and offer help, as Democratic congressional candidate Raúl Martinez has suggested?

Indeed, what’s wrong with helping people in deep affliction?

Help Cuba recover from Gustav: Obama says ease restrictions

Barack Obama and the three Democrats running for Congress in South Florida against Bush rubber-stamps have a common platform on the Cuba embargo: relax it only after Cuba makes progress toward democracy, but meanwhile ease restrictions on family visits to Cuba and on sending money to relatives in Cuba.

On Wednesday the devastation caused by Hurricane Gustav in Cuba became better known – Fidel Castro authored a newspaper column likening it to an “atomic bomb” – and the Obama campaign led the way with a call to suspend restrictions on helping Cubans for at least 90 days.

Here’s a statement from the Obama campaign quoting Sen. Obama:

"I wish to express my deepest sympathies for those affected by Hurricane Gustav, particularly the untold number affected in Cuba, who face the daunting task of reconstructing their lives with the weight of the failed Castro regime on their shoulders.

“This is a time when the Cuban people – not Castro – need and deserve American compassion and assistance. Make no mistake – the embargo must remain, and I strongly oppose any aid to the Castro regime.

”The Cuban American community stands ready to directly assist their family members in this time of need. A failed Bush administration policy, however, stands in the way of moral and necessary aid.

“Today I join with leaders in the Cuban American community in calling on President Bush to immediately suspend restrictions on family remittances, visits and humanitarian care packages from Cuban Americans for a minimum of 90 days.”

In Miami, challenger Raul Martinez, running to take FL-21 from Lincoln Diaz-Balart, said there was a “moral obligation” for Cuban Americans to aid their relatives in Cuba. He and Ramon Saul Sanchez, head of the Democracy Movement, called on President Bush to temporarily lift travel and other restrictions.

The rules imposed by the Bush administration before the 2004 election limit exiles to visiting Cuba once every three years and only sending $300 to close relatives every three months.

Annette Taddeo, challenging in FL-18, started a month ago asking incumbent Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen to relax the restrictions on travel and remittances but has had no response. Taddeo said she would increase her efforts now that the hurricane has caused heavy damage.

Joe Garcia, running to take FL-25 from Mario Diaz-Balart, issued a statement urging people to donate to the Red Cross for hurricane relief, and also for the government to revise its strict policy on helping Cubans.

“Due to the incompetence of Castro’s brutal regime, it is only through the aid of family members that innocent victims in Cuba will be able to rebuild in the wake of these storms,” Garcia said in a statement. “The thoughts and prayers of my family and campaign are with all the victims of Gustav and those in the grips of Hanna.”

Castro resigns -- early coverage not satisfactory

Fidel Castro resigns, and the biased and ill-informed stuff flows. Not everything, to be sure. And this one blogger can only look at so much. But a fair amount of early media coverage in South Florida seems to be excessively Republican, excessively defeatist when it comes to Cuba.

UPDATE: This also is posted on DailyKos, where one of the commenters made known another post on DailyKos, a short while earlier, which was from someone in Cuba, and very good it is. The link.

Most surprising to me was the number of Republicans in South Florida who seemed to think nothing had happened. Main spreader of this line was U.S. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25), who stood in Little Havana and told NBC Channel 6 at midday that all the Cubans were doing was changing titles, and that as long as Fidel was alive he was in power. “He can call himself the queen of England. He’s still in power.”

Well, yes, wise to be cautious, but Castro says he’s too sick to continue and he won’t run for office.

I prefer the thoughts of the challenger for District 25’s seat in the U.S. House, Joe Garcia, as much a Cuban American as the incumbent.

"We are witnessing the beginning of the end of one of the most oppressive regimes in history,” Garcia said in a statement. “Despite the symbolism of this morning's events, the world community should remain cautiously optimistic and accept nothing less than the absolute freedom of the Cuban people. The transfer of power between brothers is not change, it is nepotism. The Bush administration should act immediately with an effective foreign policy that leads to real change in Cuba, not just empty rhetoric. To help advance democracy we need to allow for the reunification of Cuban families and the direct sending of remittances to the island's brave dissidents. It's time to break from the status quo."

I looked in vain to find a comment like Garcia’s in the Miami Herald’s supposedly exhaustive wrapup of local reaction to the Castro news. The main story online at midday Tuesday had three bylines and 12 other reporters contributing, but no coverage of the Democrats challenging the three incumbent Republicans in the U.S. House. Joe Garcia had been on the Air America station commenting already at 7:30 a.m., and the statement above went to media outlets before 10:30 a.m.

Rather than the Democrats’ moderate plea to break from the status quo, the local media relied more on keep the same line. Mario Diaz-Balart, his brother Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18) are the main proponents in Congress of the Bushite hard line – some call it cruel – that bars most Cuban family visits and sending remittances to Cuba. This is exactly what the Democratic challengers as a team are proposing should be changed: to permit family visits and the sending of remittances.

I should declare an interest here as a member of Joe Garcia’s media team as well as volunteer communications director and blogger for the Miami-Dade Democratic Party. But I still think it’s pretty clear that much of the media in South Florida had a hard time finding anyone to buck the official hard line on Castro.

The Miami Herald’s Naked Politics blog did run a few paragraphs of the Democrats’ plea for more family visits and remittances, but more space on that blog went to U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s odd comment:

"It matters nothing at all whether Fidel, Raul or any other thug is named head of anything in Cuba," she said, in part. "What the people want is freedom to express their dissent from the oppressive regime. The community machinery is enslaving them so it does not matter who the thug of the moment will be.”

She rambled on demanding indictments against the Cubans for shooting down Cuban American fliers 12 years ago.

Again from Naked Politics: “In Tallahassee, House Speaker Marco Rubio, the first Cuban-American to be elected Florida House Speaker, compared Castro to a "crazy uncle" and brushed off the news that he won't seek re-election as nothing but "40-plus years of smoke and mirrors.”

That’s another Republican saying nothing had happened. It spilled over onto CNN, where Jill Dougherty strode around in Little Havana saying on camera that few Democratic Party figures were willing to suggest changes in U.S. policy.

But Jill, what about the three Democrats running for Congress from Miami? What about Sen. Chris Dodd and others in Congress who say the whole Cuba embargo should end?

Early in the afternoon the Florida Democratic Party arranged a conference call for reporters with the chance to question Joe Garcia and his two fellow challengers for Congress, Annette Taddeo (District 18) and Raul Martinez (District 21), along with Luis Garcia, a Cuban American from Miami Beach in the Florida House of Representatives.

We can hope that from this some wider coverage will result – not so monolitihic, please.

During the conference call one reporter asked about the overall embargo – should it be lifted? Joe Garcia responded by saying the embargo was not very strong, since the United States had sold $435 million dollars worth of food to Cuba in the past year. “But it shows we stand against the brutal regime,’ he said, adding that it would be “too big a bite at once” to lift the embargo without “first steps” and signs of improved conditions in Cuba.

As always I’m too hopeful in expecting fair and broad coverage, I guess. One phrase stands out in my memory, from a Latina who called in to Nicole Sandler’s early-morning show on the Air America station, WINZ. She said she had been leery of speaking with her Cuba-born mother about the Castro announcement “because she’s so emotional about it.”

To be kept in mind: Emotional – not rational.

Joe Garcia on Castro

Thank you, Joe, for talking about breaking from the status quo.

Readers, here's what Joe Garcia said in a statement this morning after the resignation of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro:

We are witnessing the beginning of the end of one of the most oppressive regimes in history. Despite the symbolism of this morning's events, the world community should remain cautiously optimistic and accept nothing less than the absolute freedom of the Cuban people. The transfer of power between brothers is not change, it is nepotism. The Bush administration should act immediately with an effective foreign policy that leads to real change in Cuba, not just empty rhetoric. To help advance democracy we need to allow for the reunification of Cuban families and the direct sending of remittances to the island's brave dissidents. It's time to break from the status quo.

UPDATE: And here's a link to Joe's comments on the Nicole Sandler show on WINZ Am940 this morning, with a lot of solid background on Cuba. This is a link to the entire second hour of the program; drag the marker to the middle of the track to pick up Joe at the half-hour.

One more point: Before Joe comes on, Nicole talks with a woman whose mother came from Cuba, and she says one of those things that can fly over the heads of those of us who aren't Cuban: She can't talk to her mother about Cuba because she's so emotional about it.

UPDATE II: Well, I'd say Joe beats Marco Rubio and Charlie Crist in the wisdom and common sense of his statement, compared with theirs. I found this over on The Buzz where Rubio thinks it's a joke and Crist retreats into vague pieties.

The Miami Herald reports today that Rubio doesn't know what he'll do after this year when he has to leave the State House of Representatives. Maybe he could go to school and study common sense.

Herald: Diaz-Balart may face challenger

It's tempting to rip into the Miami Herald for the headline above. Hey, that's perceptive. But no, let's look at the content.

There’s a sophomoric debating tactic called “the straw man.” The debater attempts to destroy the opponent’s argument by describing it as something different from what it really is, and defeating that (the fallacious straw man) rather than what the opponent actually argues.

We see this in Wednesday’s Miami Herald, back in the local section, where U.S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL-21) declares that the Democrats want to defeat him and his two cohorts in order to “improve relations with Cuba,” especially to get rid of the embargo.

Oh yeah? What about torture? The war in Iraq? SCHIP? We want someone with political courage to represent us in Washington, not a rubber-stamp. Someone intelligent and wise and future-oriented, not stuck in the past. Someone with true compassion, not the conservative lip-serving compassion. Someone who would complain about “signing statements” that eviscerate legislation. Someone who would save our environment, not pave it over. Yes, let’s have a reasonable Cuba policy, but that’s somewhere down in the lower half of our long list of complaints.

So, Mr. Congressman, your straw man is laid bare. And by the way, you confirmed our suspicions as to how you will campaign: with sophomoric debating tactics. Thank you for telegraphing your punch, which is a sophomoric boxing tactic.

We’ll assume that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18) and your brother Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25) will be using the same tactics.

A start to solving OUR Cuba problem

I like this idea.



Please note that nothing was said about solving Cuba's problem. It's about solving our Cuba problem, which starts with a lot of Republican demagoguery.

Draft Joe Garcia – great idea!

It’s tempting to think that this is emerging now via the “Cuban newspapers” because the mails are so slow between Washington and Havana. Ha ha. Actually, the Cuban Interests section in Washington was hot on the Internet as soon as The Hill published this topic back on Oct. 18, and Havana learned in a microsecond that Joe Garcia was tempted enough to be saying to The Hill he’d run for Congress if the party asked him.

“Ouch!” They said there in Havana. (What’s Espanol for Ouch?) “Bad for us if Joe Garcia takes over in the House of Representatives from one of those shirt-tail relatives of our Leader.” So they probably said in Havana.

And then it took them almost a month to figure out how to say it in their press.

So here’s the way I imagine their triple-twist thinking went:

1. “The Diaz-Balart brothers and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen – don’t forget Mel Martinez! – are so useful to keeping us Communists in power that we can’t imagine life without their neo-con faces in the House and Senate.” [This occupied them for a week.]
2. “But if we came out and said we favor their being re-elected in 2008, the voters there would think it was a trick, and then Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez would run and be elected.” [This took two more weeks of deep thought.]
3. “So we’ll publish a subtle analysis of the Miami political situation in Granma, our party organ, and appear to approve the likely challenges by Joe Garcia and Raul Martinez against the Diaz-Balarts, whom we’ll label as ‘Batista supporters,’ and, Voila! The Diaz-Balarts and their gang will be elected again as the voters react against what we endorse.” [Another week passed working this up.]

Here in peaceful South Florida, we raise our heads from the newspapers and TV screens full of news of police and criminals killing each other, and realize slowly that Cuba is messing around in our politics. Damn! That’s what they’re trying, is it? We’ll show them! Let’s Draft Joe Garcia and show them they can’t discourage us with their triple-twist trick!

Well, this may – or may not – be what happened, but in any case it’s a good idea. The Florida Politics blog has a diary up since last night with that goal – Draft Joe Garcia – and it’s also up on DailyKos with a way to vote and say whether you’d be willing to donate $5 to get him to run. Check it out. All the links are therein.

Next step: the future. Time for change.

How did it get so bad?

This is a good reminder of the harshness of the times we now inhabit: the land of the free and the home of the brave (that's us) has gulags under wraps, ready for those who might try to reach our shores in large numbers in the event of catastrophe (political or otherwise). Link here to the Huffington Post's recall of some of the stuff behind the president's "tough talk" speech on Cuba the other day.

We must wonder and analyze more closely how we got to this position. And for starters, a large part of it is not directly attributable to the land of the free and the home of the brave. Osama Bin-Laden gets a lot of blame for working to maneuver us into a corner. But why did we free and brave people go to that corner?

Last week I saw the movie "Kingdom," set in a Saudi Arabia where Americans are under violent attack. At the end (stop reading here if you still may see the movie) the U.S. hero confides that he told a grieving friend earlier, to raise her morale, that we would kill them all. Cut to a Saudi mother and 10-year-old son: She asks him what his dying grandfather whispered to him, and it was, Don't worry, we will kill them all.

Though this is wildly simplified, it has a kernel of truth about our times. It was not like that 20 or 30 or 40 years ago. How did it get this way? Is there a way back that doesn't involve zillions of dead people?

Miami Herald headline: "Bush to talk tough" on Cuba

They are catching on, even at the Miami Herald. This administration is not much good at getting things done, but enjoys talking tough.

W promotes numerous attitudes toward Cuba: aid “if Cuba takes a democratic turn,” as the Herald summarizes it. Well, that’s looking into the future, for sure. Just how is that democratic turn supposed to happen? Nothing done in that area.

Meanwhile, numerous suggestions for actually influencing events in that direction have come up and withered for lack of attention from Washington – and not only in this administration, one has to confess.

The human right of keeping family connections? No, under W we’re going the other direction – banning Cuban Americans from visiting family in the mother country more often than every three years.

Your blogger spent many years abroad as a news correspondent watching as the Soviet empire decayed, and it was not advanced by banning family visits. The direction went the other way: encouraging family visits, more often the better, so that Western ideals and ways of life could be seen by those behind the Iron Curtain.

And the Iron Curtain is no more. In fact, its life, measured from the end of World War II until 1989 when the Berlin Wall opened, was 44 years. How long has Castro been able to stay in power? I don’t know whether it’s because of – or in spite of – the U.S. policy on Cuba. It’s an ineffectual policy. Increasingly unpopular. It’s only ideology that keeps it alive.

Chris Dodd campaign has a nice toy

Photo from my iPhone

By accident I bumbled into Chris Dodd's news conference at the Biltmore Hotel Saturday morning and met their campaign blogger, Matt Browner-Hamlin, who was operating a live webcast of the event while hardly lifting a finger. Wow. The news conference even included a question from someone watching on line.

You can see the result with this link to the Dodd blog. Those who know Spanish can see how fluently the Connecticut senator speaks the language.

As Dodd announced his menu of changes to Cuba policy, he had a sterling group of Hispanic supporters beside him including a former chair of the Florida Democratic Party, Alfredo Duran. Dodd's Cuba policy is available on the campaign website. It's fair to say there isn't a brick left standing of the current policy. All walls down, and let's open an embassy in Havana and negotiate regular flights.

One of the reporters tried to get Dodd to say he'd rush off to meet Castro, but Dodd said that wasn't the issue: being ready for new policy was more important.

And what about the ban on campaigning due to the Florida primary mess? Are you campaigning today, Senator? "I'm campaigning every day."

More Cuba -- it's the Univision weekend

This story is the big feature on the front page of Saturday's Miami Herald, so many of you have already seen it. It talks about the increase in migration from Cuba since Fidel Castro's illness was announced a year ago. The story also finds the reason why more are leaving, or at least what they say: they don't see much chance of freedom or prosperity after Castro, so why wait.

One more point of interest for me: the Herald's repeated use of the word illegal to refer to these migrants. This usage is, of course, quite common. But as it happened, I had just read a post in the MYDD blog in which Rudy Giuliani rejected the use of illegal to refer to people in the country without visas. And as he said, he was U.S. attorney in New York and he oughta know what's illegal and what's not. It's not a federal crime to be an immigrant without a visa, and those in that situation are processed through civil court, not criminal court. There you are: from Rudy's lips.

Now let's see what words our Democratic presidential aspirants use in this situation. And I will continue to wonder at the Herald's use of illegal. No doubt they've hashed it over and decided that's the word to use.

Chris Dodd is featured in Miami Herald's Univision story

Saturday's Herald has a tidy preview of the Univision debate forum, featuring Chris Dodd's most open position on Cuba policy -- end the embargo.

Waffle House rendezvous

This may not have made it into the Herald. Credit the Stuck on the Palmetto blog for my discovery of its presence in the Sun-Sentinel, and the question is: Could there be a tunnel from Cuba to Broward County that lets a bunch of Cuban migrants turn up at a Waffle House in Oakland Park?

Rumors

Guess who was suspected of dying or being dead. Starts with C, ends with astro. Here's how the AP handled it on Friday.

Bravo! Down with Cuba travel restrictions

More than Bravo may not be necessary. Here's what the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party issued as a policy statement this weekend:

MIAMI - Miami-Dade Democratic Party Chairman Joe Garcia issued the following statement today, August, 18, 2007, on behalf of the Miami-Dade Democratic Executive Committee regarding existing restrictions on travel to Cuba:

"We support real family values, not policy that only further damages families already divided. The travel restrictions that prohibit Cuban Americans from visiting family members in Cuba more than once every three years must be eliminated. The Bush administration cannot purport to tell individuals who they can or cannot consider to be immediate family members, nor how often they should visit them."

Wise words on Cuba

Don't you wish that those in charge in Washington would talk about Cuba in new ways, wise ways? And what might they say? Here's an example, in an interview with our chairman, Joe Garcia, who's on a media blitz these days.

What’s this “pandering to dictators?”

It was one of the better questions in the YouTube debate – whether to meet with the bad guys. Meeting with the foe, to my mind, ought to be a judgment call. Are we ready to meet? Can anything good come of it? Be careful of unintended consequences. Favor being bold.

Look at the Cold War. After a lot of cold shoulders, there were thaws and refreezes, some surprise meetings, and finally it came to an end. I had the luck to be a close observer of an unexpected meeting regarding the Middle East: Anwar Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem in November 1977, when I was an Associated Press correspondent based in Israel. The Egyptian leader was welcomed warmly by the Israeli leadership and population; soon there was a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and Egypt got back all its lost territory. The Palestinians got little from that deal; they also invested little in what was then called the peace process. And today, 30 years later, we are where we are in that region. Many volumes have been written about all the bad stuff that has happened meantime, but Israel and Egypt still have their peace treaty. In 1981 Sadat paid with his life for his temerity (for me, there was a trip to Cairo to help cover his funeral).

In other words, a mixed result from Sadat’s bold move. But it did not happen at the spur of the moment, as it seemed at the time. There had been a great deal of secret diplomacy beforehand, and Sadat and the Israelis had a good understanding of the way they would resolve their issues before CBS guru Walter Cronkite appeared to be the intermediary who got Sadat and Israeli leader Menachem Begin to agree to meet.

The Clinton and Obama campaigns now are trading barbs about what they said – Hillary Clinton more cautious about meeting with such as Fidel Castro, the Iranians and North Koreans; Barack Obama more willing to have a meeting. I like Miami-Dade Democratic Chairman Joe Garcia’s wise comment on the controversy, as reported in an AP roundup:

“Obviously, Hillary’s answer was a seasoned answer within the realm of what we’re doing. But I don’t think Obama was intending to say we want to give legitimacy to dictatorships,” said Garcia, who said he was not affiliated with any of the candidates. Obama speaks to the Miami-Dade Democrats at an Aug. 25 dinner.

On the other hand we have the Republican ideologue’s comment, also from the AP roundup:

“Anything that looks like pandering to dictators is bad politics in South Florida,” said Republican state Rep. David Rivera of Miami. He predicted Obama’s comments would come back to haunt him, particularly if he becomes the Democratic nominee.

There must be some playbook where they get phrases like “pandering to dictators.” Loaded language is their stock in trade. Who panders anymore, anyway? Well, I know where that takes us in their playbook: it’s a word found under C.

An interesting sidelight is that the Miami Herald on Thursday printed three letters about the Clinton-Obama dustup, and all three were against the hard line of the Rivera camp.

Could more people be coming to understand that some bold thinking and action will be required? Our beloved country is in difficult straits. Being stuck with calcified thinking like "pandering to dictators" gives little chance to find a better course.

Fred Thompson on Cubans

It seems wet-foot/dry-foot hasn't trickled down to Fred Thompson. What did he say about Cubans? Check it out on YouTube

This item is also rattling around on the Herald's political blog, Naked Politics. Don't see it yet in the main paper online. I guess a Republican newspaper wouldn't want to upset its readers over there on the right wing.

Second Update: Now I see this in the Herald, tucked into this story reporting that Hispanics are unhappy with the way the Republicans killed the immigration bill in the Senate. And that our Republican senator, Mel Martinez, has "no idea what I'm going to say" at the Orlando meeting of Hispanic elected officials from around the U.S.

O frabjous day, Republican disarray.

Update: Thompson's blog runs on about how Ana Belen Montes was a big spy for Cuba and tries to tie her into the problem of the porous border. But I see from a Google search on her she is of Puerto Rican descent and was born on a US Army base in Germany. Not exactly a balsera. I posted a comment to this effect on Naked Politics, link above.