INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain says he doesn’t look for any major political reforms in Cuba until after Fidel Castro dies, adding he hopes that’s not far off.
As McCain put it during a campaign stop in Indiana Friday, “I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon.”
That’s a reference to the author of “The Communist Manifesto,” who died in 1883.
McCain’s comments follow an argument between Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over the best way to push for change in Cuba.
Castro himself has responded to the barbed interest in his decision to step down this week as Cuba’s leader.
Eighty-one years-old and infirm, Castro says he’s enjoyed seeing “the embarrassing position of all the presidential candidates” making “demands of Cuba.” And he says he made the right call by
stepping down.
Straight talk from someone 50 years the target of America’s percieved self-importance.
If any of the candidates was ‘different’ or truly ‘for change’ they might point out that what America could/should do is let the Cubans decide their future themselves and STFU.
Not one would dare point out that the USA delivered Castro to the Cuban people and the Kremlin by the gross, stubborn failings of it’s own foreign policy at the time, and kept him there by continuing to not change a damn thing.
Sadly all this went down in a period when they actually had diplomats (and sadly so did we, and did nothing). These days, the President is God and when his knee jerks, the diplomats listen. Recognizing Kosovo in 3/10ths of a second for example. "Oh why are they burning our Embassy in Serbia? Everyone hates us? They’re all liberals!!! Waaaahhh!!!
Which brings me to the root question I ask my American friends: Why on Earth would you have a revolution to remove a Tyrant Monarch, and then set up an incredibly populist democracy that in the end delivers the President the same power?
I respect John McCain’s military service, but it can’t float the fact that this was an incredibly unpresidential and ‘unchristian’ thing to say (in the parlance of his party). If the New York Times can’t fry him, he may with his own words. Seriously, years of war imprisonment and decades of political sharpening ought to have instilled a more objective, humble stance than this.
If McCain is elected, expect the perpetuation of Bush’s foreign policy, but less clumsily and with a hunger for blood instead of oil. From my perspective, he’s an extension of the exact kind of politics that Herbie just enumerated.
Agreed. I’ll be curious to see if America opts for the Democrats in November. McCain will hold to the failed policies of the present administration. He thinks that the troops will be in Iraq for 100 years.
If Obama is the candidate - and he almost assuredly is now - I think there’s a very good chance. If McCain manages to swing the fogey vote and the unengaged mid-lifers for a win, it could yield disastrous results for the future of American politics; an entire generation of young voters will be disengaged all over again.
Agreed. I certainly hope that America chooses the politics of hope (Obama) and not the failed rhetoric of the GOP.
Heh, another old codger entered the race today.
Not the best news of the day for Democrats, who still think that Ralph’s entry into the last election gave Mr. Bush another four years (it didn’t help, but Kerry ran a terrible campaign at times as well).
At any rate, in a two party system such as the US, the entry of a third candidate won’t be helpful to the more liberal of the two options. Cant’ see him siphoning off many votes from McCain, but he could do so from those who may not be sold on Obama or Clinton.
You can bet that the Democrats are not a happy camp this morning with this news…
Agreed. Obama does not think very highly of Nader.
[quote] Sen. Barack Obama criticized Nader earlier this weekend. “My sense is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don’t listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you’re not substantive,” Obama told reporters when asked about Nader’s possible candidacy.
“He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work.”[/quote]
SNL did a funny on the Obama lovefest last night. Funny, as I’d just watched the debate on CNN and saw little “hope” from Obama.
His health care plan is absurd. Hillary’s is only marginally better.
He mostly got to follow Clinton, and merely added to what she said. There was little differentiation.
I waited in vain for Hillary to stand up and shout “It’s the economy, stupid!”, as that’s where her strength lies and she fails to hammer the point across.
At least they have an Obama and not a Stephen Dion type to run the anybody but Clinton movement.
Obama’s gonna take it. And he’s gonna beat McCain.
And we’ll pull a stupid and give El Harpo a majority so we can be out of phase again and get hammered by a wave of US protectionism.
“The Dalai Lama visited the White House and told the President that he could teach him to find a higher state of consciousness. Then after talking to Bush for a few minutes, he said, "You know what? Let’s just grab lunch."â€
[quote]Nader, 73, said he’s joining the race because the top contenders have become too corporate.
“When you see the paralysis of government, when you see Washington, D.C., being corporate-occupied territory, every department agency controlled by an overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people, one feels an obligation,” he said.[/quote]
Someone sees that. Too bad the 95% of the voter’s don’t think that’s an issue.
HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) – Cuba’s National Assembly chose Raul Castro, Fidel Castro’s younger brother, as Cuba’s new president on Sunday.
Fidel Castro, 81, who has ruled the country since the 1950s, announced his resignation last week in a letter published on the online version of the state-run newspaper Granma.
He cited his “critical health condition” and said, “it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer.”
Castro entered the hospital in 2006 for intestinal surgery and transferred some powers to his 76-year-old brother Raul, the country’s longtime defense minister.
On Sunday, the National Assembly – Cuba’s 614-member legislature – chose through secret ballot the 31-member Council of State, which acts on behalf of the Assembly when it is not in session.
"At this point I am dedicating myself to the adversaries. I enjoyed watching the embarrassing position of all the candidates for the United States presidency. One by one they were obliged to announce their immediate demands of Cuba in order not to risk losing a single voter. Not that I am a Pulitzer Prize winner interrogating them on CNN on the most delicate political and even personal matters from Las Vegas, where the logic of chance of the roulette rules and where one has to make ones humble presence if aspiring to be president.
Half a century of blockade seemed little enough to the favorites. “Change, change, change!” they cried in unison.
I am in agreement, change! but in the United States. Cuba changed a long while ago and will follow its dialectical route. “No return to the past ever!” exclaim our people. "
Fidel Castro
“I enjoyed seeing the embarrassing position of all the presidential candidates in the United States,” he wrote in a column published by the Communist Party daily Granma.
“One by one, they felt obliged to proclaim their immediate demands of Cuba so as not to risking losing a single vote,” Castro said.
“‘Change, change, change!’” they cried in chorus. I agree, ‘change!’ but in the United States," he wrote.
