Last week in this space there appeared a suggestion that New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd leave the island of Manhattan and take a tour around the country so that she could try and figure out how the supremely stupid, arrogant, demolisher of the extra—Constitutional "wall" between church and state, President George W. Bush, somehow managed to slay another Democrat in a election.

Among the recommended destinations was Miami, where Dowd could perhaps interview some Cuban—Americans who could tell her how off—base she is when she talks and writes of a Bush 'jihad' in the United States and school her on what life under a real dictator is really like for his subjects. One of Maureen's fans, however, thought Miami was too far north. The reader wrote in and asked 'Why stop at Miami to hear of the exploits of a dictatorial regime? Keep going south to Guantanamo Bay. No shortage of examples there!'

Very funny. Very typical. Very insulting. This is the sort of thing that brings guffaws at 'important dinner parties' with Tina Brown's set, outraged agreement from misguided fools who then boldly announce they are leaving for France or Canada (though they never will), and grave, concerned head—shaking from bearded, aging professors and former Senate minority leaders. Unfortunately, this mindset has gripped the left and will not let go.

Despite levelheaded and honest assessments of the state of the party from Democrats like James Carville and Pat Caddell, many leftists have deluded themselves into thinking that the democratically—elected President Bush is running a real dictatorship. They believe that the President is operating a nation in which free speech is increasingly squelched, that he will round up homosexuals and send them far away, where imprisoned al Qaeda are brutalized, and that he will soon happily oversee the installation a 50—foot steeple to the roof of the White House — named after Bob Jones, of course. To these people, one has a simple request: shove it and learn the story of Dr. Oscar Biscet.

Biscet, 43, is a Cuban medical doctor, married and father of two children, and founder of the Lawton Foundation, a group of Cubans dedicated to the peaceful defense of basic civil and human rights through civil disobedience. Biscet is a student of Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his foundation's ultimate goal is democracy and freedom for Cuba. Unlike those who marched through the streets of America calling President Bush the second coming of Hitler and a war criminal outside Madison Square Garden this past summer, Biscet's quiet protests against the Cuban government and nonviolent fight for democracy landed him in one of Fidel Castro's most dehumanizing, violent prisons, the Cuba Si on the eastern end of the island, in 1999.

Biscet was released in 2002, but arrested a month later. The Lawton Foundation is considered an illegal organization by the Cubans. As such, Biscet was charged with, among other things 'insulting symbols of the fatherland,' and 'instigation to commit crime.' For this and for staging a hunger strike, Castro's thugs sentenced Biscet to 25 more years in prison.

While captured al Qaeda operatives — whose mission in their pathetic lives is the destruction of the United States — are treated to three squares a day and all the prayer rugs and copies of the Koran they need courtesy of the American taxpayer, Biscet has spent years in a small, unlit, windowless, filthy cell not fit for swine, often with a cellmate who was uncontrollably violent. Biscet was then isolated, though he was recently moved into a cell with 'an American citizen charged with human trafficking.'

Biscet is allowed no medicine (so much for universal health care), no reading material, no correspondence, and no visitors other than a few, short visits from his wife. In July, Biscet smuggled a letter out to his wife, who reported that her husband had been deprived of food since June. Biscet had to rely on handouts from other prisoners and was said to be close to death in the summer. Castro and his henchmen thus openly mock article 58 of their own constitution, which states that the integrity of a prisoner must not be violated.
 
This is but a small window into the world of Dr. Oscar Biscet and but one example of one dictatorship. But the next time you hear some leftist whine about how long it's taking the Canadian immigration office to process his papers so he can escape the tyranny of 'Jesusland,' or listen to that Ivy League—educated retiree insist in public demonstrations that the President of the United States derives his jollies from having created an empire based on gay—bashing and the thrill of watching flag—draped coffins come back from Iraq, think of Dr. Oscar Biscet.

The next time you hear a clueless columnist use the words 'Bush' and 'human rights violations' in the same sentence, think of Fidel Castro. The next time you hear some fathead squealing about 'political prisoners' being held in American military jails, think of what words like 'regime,' 'dictatorship,' and 'criminal' truly mean. Ask why it is that college kids think it's neat to hang images of Che Guevara on their dorm walls, but couldn't pick Biscet out of a lineup of one. Ask why it is American journalists would rather stay up late, laughing and smoking cigars with Castro in Havana than blast Biscet's story to the world.

Think about all of that. Then think about who is truly responsible for creating a climate of hatred and division that the left pretends to loathe so much.

Matt May is a freelance writer and can be reached at matthewtmay@yahoo.com