Posted on 07/30/2003 10:13:53 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON -- It was not just that the Bush administration dispatched 12 Cubans who hijacked a boat to the tender mercies of Fidel Castro. What inflamed pro-Bush Cuban-Americans in south Florida is that the United States negotiated with the communist dictator to impose 10-year prison sentences. This sudden agreement between Washington and Havana could cost George W. Bush a second term.
President Bush's Cuban-American friends consider this a de facto trial, resulting in incarceration by a police state. "This is a very pained community," Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart told me. Sharing the pain of his Cuban constituents and known to be unhappy with the decision is the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. "I do not think the president was aware of this decision," said Diaz-Balart.
Although there is truly no sign the decision went to the Oval Office, its political sting may be felt there. It is clear that Bush could not have won Florida and the presidency in 2000 without Cuban votes. Since repatriation of the hijackers, Florida Democrats have been busy pointing out betrayal by the White House. If Cuban voters stay home next time, Florida will almost surely be won by Bush's Democratic opponent.
Eleven men and one woman, seeking freedom in America, stole the Cuban boat Gaviota 16 on July 15 but were intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard the next day. They were denied automatic entry into the U.S. granted under law, citing an agreement with Castro made by President Bill Clinton. The issue went to a U.S. interagency committee, where Justice and State Department career bureaucrats insisted the refugees be returned to Castro.
The three Cuban-Americans from south Florida in Congress -- Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother, Mario, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- pleaded to send the hijackers elsewhere, perhaps Guantanamo. Instead, the bureaucrats bargained with the Cuban dictator. Once Castro agreed not to execute the refugees as he had U.S.-bound hijackers in April, U.S. negotiators eagerly accepted 10-year prison sentences. The freedom-seekers were sent back July 21.
Desire to achieve accord with Castro has not borne fruit. Starting July 6, U.S. broadcasts to Iran that are critical of the mullahs were illegally jammed from Cuba. Why has the U.S. government not protested? The CIA has informed the White House that the jamming originated at the Iranian embassy in Havana. It defies belief that this could have been done without concurrence and cooperation by Cuba's government.
Repatriation of the hijackers fits a pattern. In federal court in Key West, Fla., July 10, a Cuban accused of skyjacking was denied permission to testify that he feared for his life if he surrendered control of the plane to Castro's agents. President Bush has waived the rights of Americans to sue foreign speculators who profit from stolen American properties in Cuba. The Justice Department never has sought indictments of Cuban Air Force pilots who shot down small civilian aircraft in international air space.
President Bush has been prevented from getting his choices in control of Cuban policy. Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd has been relentless in blocking confirmation of Bush's own assistant secretary of state for Latin America. Without much effort made by the White House, Bush gave up on Otto Reich, former ambassador to Venezuela, who was instead named a presidential adviser. Roger Noriega, ambassador to the Organization of American States, was finally confirmed by the Senate Tuesday night after a four-month wait.
If Fidel Castro was a fixation for John F. Kennedy, he seems off the screen for George W. Bush. While repatriation to Cuban prisons caused a furor in south Florida, it hardly made a ripple in Washington. My check of Bush policy and political advisers indicated neither awareness of nor interest in what happened.
Lincoln Diaz-Balart refers to the Cubans as the base of Hispanic support for the president and the Republican Party. If this is the treatment given the only minority group that supports the GOP, he wonders what message will be sent other minority groups wooed by Republicans. "When the base is ignored," the congressman said, "there is a problem." More than ignored, the Cubans are simply disrespected, and that is the painful message in Miami.
Near as I can recall, that's been our standing policy: return criminals to Cuba since we don't want to make a habit of rewarding hijackers with liberty on U.S. soil.
What inflamed pro-Bush Cuban-Americans in south Florida is that the United States negotiated with the communist dictator to impose 10-year prison sentences.
...and the standard sentence would have been LIFE perhaps? Or DEATH? As I recall, the Cuban "justice" system under Castro is particularly harsh. Could it be that the 10-year sentence requested was actually a plea for (gasp) lenience??
This sudden agreement between Washington and Havana could cost George W. Bush a second term.
Bah. The Cuban-Americans know which side their bread is buttered on. C'mon...it's not like Bush sent in armed military men wielding automatic weapons to snatch a little boy away from his relatives to return him to Castro's Cuba...
-Jay
My thoughts aren't worth John's two cents, but let me take a quick stab at a response.
Don't be too disturbed. It's all glossed and forgotten now, but Reagan messed up the base plenty in his day.
The Reagan administration imposed their fair share of tariffs and what were euphemistically dubbed "voluntary duties"(check out The Reagan Record On Trade: Rhetoric Vs. Reality from the Cato Institute for more detail).
Reagan signed immigration reform that gave amnesty to illegal aliens, which served to increase, not stem as Reagan had hoped, the flow of illegals.
Reagan campaigned on a pledge to bring Federal spending under control, and we know how that turned out.
Reagan pulled us out of Lebanon in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Marines, showing weakness to our enemies.
Reagan vowed never to negotiate with terrorists and yet de facto did just that by allowing the arms sales to Iranian "moderates" in the hopes of influencing the hostage takers in Lebanon.... And so on and so on with regards to a whole array of other issues with which Reagan parted company with many in the party.
Reagan's my favorite president and is one of the truly great leaders of all time. But he wasn't an ideal conservative leader all the time. You're right. Bush is ticking off the base on some issues. But so did Reagan. And that's pretty good company to keep.
Then you know first hand how bad a beating he took from conservative corners. There's a quote from a conservative critic back in 1983, when Reagan's approval was 35%, featured in the PBS Reagan documentary in which Reagan was dismissed as a failure; the only question left undecided, the writer said, was the scope of Reagan's failure.
On the subject of your boss (were you post White House?), I'm gonna bore you some more. He gave me the single biggest thrill of my life as a young man.
When he was president-elect, Reagan came to El Paso to meet the president of Mexico. As thanks for having worked as a youth coordinator on the campaign, they gave me the job of driving Ed Meese's wife around the city while the meetings were taking place. When she failed to show, Reagan overheard one of the advance team telling this bummed out teen that I wouldn't be needed. He signaled for one of the advance men to later make it up to me by inviting me aboard Air Force Two (he was flying in it courtesy of Carter before taking office).
Reagan personally took several minutes out of his life to take this dingaling kid on a tour of the plane, intoduced me to Ed Meese, and apologized to me because I didn't get to do the job. My father, who was coincidentally working support security at the same event, actually witnessed all of this. It was a watershed moment in our relationship. Because of what Reagan did, my father treated me with a whole new level of respect and not as simply a kid anymore. Little acts of kindness to nobodies like me spread out over the man's lifetime add up to an enormous personal impact on others that can never be fully measured.
You're a lucky person to have worked for such a man.
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