“In a formal written statement, McCain also took a shot at Obama, the Democratic front-runner who renewed his offer to speak to leaders of US foes without preconditions in a campaign debate with rival Hillary Clinton in Texas.
“‘So Raul Castro gets an audience with an American president, and all the prestige such a meeting confers, without having to release political prisoners, allow free media, political parties, and labor unions, or schedule internationally monitored free elections,’ McCain said.
[...]
“Meet, talk, and hope may be a sound approach in a state legislature, but it is dangerously naive in international diplomacy where the oppressed look to America for hope and adversaries wish us ill.”
I’m not sure if this kind of statement is Orwellian or simply unadalterated ignorance coming from a man who recently stated that Vladimir Putin was the President of Germany, and that he’d just returned form a meeting with German President Putin not too long ago.
Either way, perhaps the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party is in need of a history lesson. U.S. Presidents have long histories meeting with brutal tyrants, dictators, presidents for life and absolute monarchs quite regularly, not one of whom ever once had to release political prisoners, allow free media, political parties, and labor unions, or schedule internationally monitored free elections in order to have the meeting with the U.S. President.
Here are just a few examples of U.S. presidents meeting, shaking hands or dining with some of the most brutal human beings to rule nations since the end of the Second World War. My personal favourite is the one of LBJ meeting with brutal authoritarian dictators Park Chung Hee of South Korea AND Ferdinand Marcos of The Philippines at the same time. Meeting with one brutal dictator is all well and good, but when you’re so overbooked that you’ve got to double up on your meetings with brutal dictators, now that‘s art.
and….
Official meetings on behalf of the U.S. President:
See also:
The U.S. embargo against Cuba was never about ‘democracy’
Bush names terrorist sympathizer as new ambassador to Nicaragua
Naomi Wolf on the end of America and the rise of fascism (audio)
Kettle calls the teapot black: Bush calls Cuba “criminal”
Don’t worry, for better or worse, Cuba will be safe for GM and Coca-Cola sooner or later.
mccain has been hanging around bush too much.
Nice pics. Says it all!
Yeah. It’s a damn effective statement from a conservative politician, because conservative supporters have no knowledge of the truth. Anybody who does is not a conservtive. McCain doesn’t care about those people anyways, they would never vote for him. It’s the ignorant voters that he wants to reach here, to reinforce their illusions. As you well know.
@marcel
Uh, I thought that Cuban-Americans basically voted as a bloc for the republicans. Are you saying that you’re less ignorant about Cuba than people who actually lived there, and have relatives living there.
Or maybe you mean someone else when you refer to “those people”.
I hope all you liberal socialist idiots are happy if the latest bull crap artist (#1 Bill Clinton) from the democratic party raises your taxes! Obama has extremely poor judgement, not just in his choice of friends’ or preachers, but in his voting record. How pathetic our country is to be fooled by this joke of a leader Obama- he has led nothing except maybe a community basketball league or an ACORN training course. I hope he fails at everything just to show all that supported this man of no “substance” he was a desperate cry for change! Mind blowing that people don’t care that the democrats and Obama are responsible for our economy being in the toilet- have they not been in charge for the last 2 years. No one can touch them, or their leaders, the most evil Pelosi and Reid, the masters of the puppet Obama who want nothing more than our troops to fail in the middle east- anything for them to look good. The media has reached an all time low in this election and the double standards have been most amazing. If Sara Palin said things as stupid as Joe Biden she would be eaten alive AGAIN. But no, they are “Bidenisms” and they are expected for ol’ Joe!!
The most ignorant voters are the blacks that still believe election after election the democrats are going to take care of them- they will never learn. More scary than Barack is his wife!!!!!!!! Look out!