On Detente with Dictatorships and Double Standards

Newt Gingrich on Progressive Politics

ESPN Sports Cuban Propaganda

One of the reasons why sports is a popular pastime among Americans is because it has tended to be non-partisan. It is news which mentally reconnects aged athletes back to their glory days, while stoking local loyalties and friendly rivalries and forgetting the tumult of news from the "real world".

Unfortunately, the trend in the media has been to politicize everything, including sports news.  More than seeing sports through a lens of political correctness, the sports media has segued into political propaganda. 

A case in point was a ESPN Sportscenter social media sharing in regards to President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba after 55 years of bilateral hostility.

ESPN authorized a Tweet which whitewashed the brutality of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro's communist regime by promoting propaganda that Fidel was a sports fan. 

After a couple of hours of consternation, ESPN withdrew the post, but the damage was done by humanizing the despot. One of the reasons that Cubans believe that they won their long standoff with the United States is because of Fidel's romancing the American press. 

It may be true that Fidel is a big sports fan.  Fidel even yearned to play for the Yanquis in his youth. But ESPN featuring such factoids during a controversial trip to Cuba by President Barack Obama amounts to propaganda. Mr. Obama will remain in Havana to see a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game rather than return to Washington after the coordinated Brussels terror attacks. 

To give a truer picture of the sporting Castro, it is important to understand how Fidel Castro used sports as a weapon to enforce his communist ideology.



A more accurate picture of Fidel Castro's sporting sense is captured by hitting the links with the bloody revolutionary Che Guevara. 

[L] Che Guevara [R] Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro

It is dubious that Che's favorite sport was golf.  More likely it was coaching firing squads.

Obama's White House Channels JFK?

In response to the uproar over President Obama normalizing relations with Cuba without gaining any real concessions from the Castros, White House spokesman Josh Earnest invoked the spirit of JFK.  Earnest intimated that President Kennedy would change his policy of isolation after seeing that it did not bring about the desired change.

Really?  Is this wisdom akin to Mr. Obama's assertion that he heard the 2/3rds of Americans who did not participate in the Midterms shellacking of President Obama's Democrats in the House and Senate?  Of course, such perspecaciousness is unsurprising for a Commander-in-Chief who can see fallen heroes in a Memorial Day audience, especially Navy Corpsemen (sic). 

While the left and the right may seek to claim the mantle of Camelot after 50 years, it certainly seems like a stretch to imply that a Cold Warrior such as JKF, would give up for nothing.  After all, President Kennedy gave the final  approved for the Bay of Pigs invasion (before he withdrew air cover during the operation thus dooming the mission).  And Kennedy stood up to the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Furthermore, JFK  plotted several assassination attempts against Fidel.  It seems with his spurious assertion that Josh Earnest continues to be the ironic Obama spokesman.

But pro arguendo, should American foreign policy toward economically isolating Havana change after 50 years?  Well, 190 other nations have not been observing the boycott and what sort of political and economic liberalization has occurred in the island prison state?   Hmm, foreign tourists enjoy white  sandy beaches in Cuba but are cordoned off from the grime the common people live with through tourist apartheid separated by barbed wire fences.  Many regular Cubans seek to work as "sex workers" since prostitutes can garner some hard currency from tips.  Western companies can invest, but they must partner with the kleptocratic communist Cuban government  which keeps 92% of the joint venture worker's salary.

Then consider President Obama's diplomatic skills.  Once again, the 44th President is coddling a dictatorial government who is actively opposed to our interests, without winning anything in return. Wonder what our Dear Leader will offer Kim Jong Un in the wake of Sony Hack Attack in appeasement?

h/t: A.F. Branco 

Senator Marco Rubio Slams Obamas Naive Negotiations with Cuba

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) had some harsh words for President Barack Obama's diplomatic naivite as displayed in his deal to release American hostages in exchange for normalizing relations with Castro's Cuba.

Rubio labeled Mr. Obama as the worst negotiator in American history.  But when a leader is driven to do something and faces no consequences from an electorate then any excuse will do.

h/t: Michael Ramirez

Senator Bob Menendez on Let's Make a Deal with Havana

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the outgoing Chairman of the Senator Foreign Relations Committee, had harsh words for the deal which effectively normalized diplomatic relations with the Fidel and Raul Castro governed Cuba.

Senator Menendez opined that trading for the freedom of Alan Gross sets an extremely dangerous precedent which invites rogue regimes to use Americans serving overseas as a bargaining chip.