Bush misses the boat on Cuba

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published October 27, 2007

President Bush has always missed the politics on Cuba, and his saber-rattling Wednesday ensures that the country most able to foster democracy there will continue to be the least able. This marks another lost opportunity for Cubans, Americans - and the Republican Party.

Bush broke no policy ground. His call for Cubans to rise up against the communist government was little more than red meat for hard-line Cuban exiles in the run-up to the 2008 general election. Bush foreclosed any opening to the Castro regime, run by Raul since brother Fidel, 81, fell ill last year. He called on Europe and Latin America to join Washington's economic embargo, which after 45 years has failed to bring about democracy or any other positive change.

Bush's verbal elbows - terror, trauma, misery, "the dying gasps of a failed regime" - didn't match the inducements he offered Cubans to revolt. The president implored members of Cuba's government and the security services to "rise up" and demand their liberty, in exchange for such perks as Internet service and overseas scholarships. This from a president who has made it harder for Cuban-Americans to see or help their families on the island.

The speech also could further damage his party. Hard-line exiles from the 1960s are giving way to younger Cuban-Americans who have neither the same strong hatred of the Castro dictatorship nor ties to U.S. conservatives. Isolating Cuba has not worked. As Tony Zamora, a Cuban-American lawyer and Bay of Pigs veteran, told St. Petersburg Times reporter David Adams, "I'm sad that the president of the United States is so completely ignorant of reality."

[Last modified October 26, 2007, 21:38:06]