Castro Endorses Obama
No, not Fidel. Not brother and military dictator Raul Castro. But Raul's daughter, Mariela. She is in America to deliver speeches, the Wall Street Journal points out, while Cuba holds American contractor Alan Gross in prison.
The State Department defended the visa decision on free-speech grounds. But that's hard to square with its history of using visas as a policy tool. There are many examples of elected Latin American officials and military brass being refused travel to the U.S. for reasons that override their rights to express themselves.
The Obama Administration tends to be receptive to socialists in power in Central and South America (see Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega), and may have been seeking to appease these leaders who shunned President Obama in Columbia this past April, citing the U.S. commitment to sanctions on Cuba.
Meanwhile, Democrats have begun an all-out assault on Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and possible VP choice by Mitt Romney, for his enthusiastic conservative rhetoric.
While Mariela Castro is welcomed by the political elite on the Left for free speech reasons, Senator Rubio and his American flag waving, entrepreneurial, pull-up-your-boot-straps speech making is to be shunned according to Obama's people.
Mr. Estrada is a candidate for Justice of the Peace in Gilbert, Arizona