With only a couple of months left before the Bush Administration gets indicted leaves office, I was wondering whether Dubya would launch any last-minute foreign policy initiatives.  Doing so would not be unprecedented — eight years ago, Clinton spent a lot of his time trying to secure Middle East peace.

According to Jim Hoagland in this morning’s WaPo, Bush isn’t interested in similar efforts, shooting down a proposal by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to reach out to Cuba and Iran.

Unlike Hoagland, I think that is a mistake, particularly in the case of Cuba.

Someone (sorry — I can’t find the reference) once said that the best time to open the door to Cuba would be during the second term of a Republican president. The current transition to a new President makes even more sense.  Given the fact that every President since Kennedy has been captive to the electoral influence of Florida’s Cuban exile community, the best way to break the cycle is to take action when there’s little or no impact on politics. And it’s not like the move would hurt Republican prospects — Cuban-American Members of Congress (and the 2012 Republican nominee) could condemn Bush’s decision.

I have no illusions about the Castros — in the early 1990s, I spent a year documenting the Castro regime’s use of psychiatric techniques (such as electro-convulsive therapy) to torture dissidents.  But I share President-elect Obama’s view that the best way to secure change in rogue regimes is through engagement.  The decades-old U.S. policy of isolating Cuba has failed to bring down the Castro regime and has done little to encourage domestic Cuban opposition.  In fact, the current embargo only gives the Castros greater legitimacy in the eyes of average Cubans.

It’s been nearly twenty years since the Berlin Wall fell.  Most Americans — and even most policymakers — no longer think that isolating Cuba makes any sense.  It’s no longer a “Soviet aircraft carrier off the shores of Florida,” and it isn’t even the greatest challenge to American influence in Latin America (that dubious honor now belongs to Hugo Chavez and Venezuela).

Rice’s mistake may have been attempting to move directly to the idea of formally recognizing the Castro regime.  According to Hoagland, Rice sent a team of senior diplomats to explore the that possibility a year ago.  I agree with Hoagland that doing so would have represented moving too quickly and would have severely limited President-elect Obama’s options.

But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t steps that Bush could take to improve U.S.-Cuban relations.  The first, and least politically costly, would be to end the current rule preventing Cuban-Americans from sending remittances to their Cuban relatives.  Even the Cuban American National Foundation, the most vocal (and politically powerful) advocate of sustaining the embargo, has said it would support the change.

The second would be to seek an agreement with the Castros to permit more extensive cultural exchanges (including journalists).  One of the most effective components of American public diplomacy during the Cold War was a series of exchanges that brought Soviet artists to the United States and sent American artists to tour the Soviet Union.  The program helped give Soviet citizens an entirely different view of life in the United States than what they were seeing in Soviet propaganda.  (The Soviets also recognized the value of such exchanges, and used them for the same purpose.)

The third would be to end the embargo and permit U.S.-Cuban trade.  Allowing the flow of American goods into the country would do much to increase Cuban citizens’ opinion of the United States and end one of the Castro brothers’ most effective arguments against improved relations.

These measures would go a long way toward ending the freeze in Cuban-American relations without undermining the underlying policy — that the Cuban people deserve the opportunity to choose their own government.  It also would do harm to Chavez and others who like to argue that the United States is only interested in advancing its neocolonialist policies.

So why would Bush oppose such efforts, even when they involve no apparent cost?  The answer has nothing to do with Hoagland’s view that any reassessment of Cuban policy should be left to the next Administration and everything to do with politics:  Jeb Bush may still think he can run for President in four years.  Given Dubya’s current unpopularity, that certainly looks like the longest of long shots. But President Bush is unlikely to do anything now that would undermine his brother’s popularity in a key Republican constituency.

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I’ve been holding off commenting on this story until I could hear about the results of the conference call the McCain campaign held this morning in response to this Washington Post article:

[S]ome of [Al-Qaeda's] supporters think Sen. John McCain is the presidential candidate best suited to [their goals].  “Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” President Bush. . . .

In language that was by turns mocking and ominous, the newest posting. . .suggested that a terrorist strike might swing the election to McCain and guarantee an expansion of U.S. military commitments in the Islamic world.  “It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda,” said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. “Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America.”

In response, the McCain campaign got foreign policy spokesman Randy Scheunemann and raving right-wingnut ex-CIA director James Woolsey on a call with reporters and bloggers.  Of course, the very fact they were holding a call probably indicates that there’s a problem.  Dave Weigel reports on the results:

Schneuemann and Woolsey attacked the paper for selectiveness and unfairness, listing supportive things said by American enemies like Ghadaffi about Obama that the Post never covered. Plus, according to Woolsey, there’s no way a serious Al-Qaeda blogger could support McCain.

This individual knows that an endorsement by him is a kiss of death, figuratively. He is not trying to help John McCain.

The first question: If this was a bad faith comment meant to hurt McCain, how do we know comments from Ahmedinijad about Obama aren’t meant to hurt the Democrat?   Woolsey:

Any major organization, itself, will not take the risk to depart from the party line.

Okay, let’s dissect this a bit.  If you are to believe the Wingnut Twins, the the Post’s alleged failure to cover past favorable comments by Ghadaffi and Chavez somehow makes their coverage of Al-Qaeda’s commentary on McCain somehow illegitimate.  This defies logic for several reasons.

To begin with, other outlets, including the Associate Press, reported the story as well.

Second, the Post, like every other media outlet, has reported on stories where the McCain campaign (and others) suggested that foreign leaders’ preference for Obama made him unfit for office.  Post columnists like Charles Krauthammer have hammered this home again and again.  And that doesn’t even touch on the mini-controversy caused by the fact that a Hamas spokesman at one point said he would favor Obama.

Third, the standard isn’t whether the Post covered it, but whether the McCain campaign itself thought similar stories were newsworthy.  McCain and his surrogates have hammered Obama on both his “no preconditions” speech and the Hamas story, among others.  The campaign and its stalking horses in the blogosphere have even brought up favorable comments by Obama’s supporters, trying to use his followers’ statement to link him to Chavez, the Castros, Ahmadinejad, and even Che Guevara. Only now, when the tables are turned, is this somehow off limits.

Fourth, what do you think whould have happened if the press reported that al Qaeda actually preferred Obama?  Woolsey and Scheunemann would be frothing at the mouth, and Schmidt and company would have a new ad up saying Osama hearts Obama.

Fifth,  John McCain has repeatedly criticized Obama for expressing a willingness to violate Pakistan’s sovereignty to “take out” Osama bin Laden.  It is Obama, not McCain, who has promised to redirect resources currently used in Iraq to win the war in Afghanistan.  It is Obama, not McCain who poses the greater threat to al Qaeda.  So to suggest that this was designed to hurt McCain because he is the bigger threat is to ignore the facts.

Last but not least, the CIA, among others, has noted that Osama bin Laden’s 2004 video, released four days before the Presidential election, played a significant role in pushing a number of undecideds toward Bush — which was exactly the result bin Laden wanted.  If, as Scheunemann and Woolsey would have you believe, al Qaeda fears McCain more than Obama, wouldn’t it make sense that they would avoid taking an action that would tilt the election toward McCain?

The McCain campaign can’t have it both ways.  They can’t argue that other foreign nutjobs’ apparent support for Obama proves he is unworthy to be President and then claim that these nutjobs’ support for McCain proves that he is the bigger threat to terrorism.  You also can’t suggest that al Qaeda’s support for you is fake and that Ahmedinejad, Chavez and others’ support for Obama is sincere.

Oh. Wait.  It’s the McCain campaign.

Inconsistency and double standards are their preferred tools.

Never mind.

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As I’ve noted before, I despise the Castro regime (both its Fidel and Raul editions).  I spent a year in the early 1990s documenting its use of psychiatric institutions to detain and torture human rights advocates and regime critics.  But I also oppose the U.S. embargo — I agree with the position held by many of the brave human rights and democracy activists on the island, who believe that it is one of the few things propping up the current regime.

So I have to say I was not surprised at the following report:

After days of pressure by certain Cuban exile leaders on the Bush Administration to temporarily lift travel and money remittance restrictions to Cuba to aid storm victims, the State Department has finally delivered a response.  The answer is no, the federal government will not lift restrictions that limit Cuban exiles to visiting close relatives in Cuba once every three years and sending up to $300 every three months.

In a statement issued Friday, the office of the State Department spokesman had this to say in direct response to the pleas for lifting restrictions: “We do not believe that at this time it is necessary to loosen the restrictions on remittances and travel to Cuba to accomplish the objective of aiding the hurricane victims.Non-governmental organizations on the ground in Cuba are already mobilizing to provide such assistance.”

The issue arose last week when three prominent members of the Cuban exile community, Ramon Saul Sanchez of the Democracy Movement and congressional Democratic Party candidates Raul Martinez and Joe Garcia called on President Bush to lift the restrictions. Then Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama endorsed the exile appeals. A bipartisan group of congressional leaders, four Republicans and three Democrats, issued a separate statement urging the U.S. government to send aid directly to storm victims. The Republicans included the two incumbents Martinez and Garcia are challenging: Lincoln and his brother Mario Diaz-Balart.

So let me get this straight.  The Cuban exile community supports the temporary lifting of the embargo to facilitate the delivery of relief to the victims of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, but the Bush Administration refused — in all likelihood because they’re trying to placate the Cuban exile community.

The ongoing stupidities of this Administration will never cease to amaze me.

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We’re taking one last look back at the most discussed — and controversial — Olympics since Berlin 1936. Previously, we looked at the winners, the losers, and winners who in fact lost.

Now it’s time for the medal winners in the schadenfreude competition.  These are the top three moments where an individual or country did something bad that made people feel good.

Bronze:  The French 4×100 men’s freestyle relay team. Before the race, the French team trash-talked, suggesting they would crush an American team that included Michael Phelps.  After 350m, the French had nearly a body length lead and Alain Bernard, the world-record holder in the 100m freestyle, in the pool.  And Jason Lezak somehow caught him.  After the race, the French looked like they had been hit by a truck.

Silver:  American swimmer Amanda Beard. After posing nude for a PETA protest against the Chinese export of fur, Beard failed to make the finals in any of her races.  And along the way, 41-year-old Dara Torres took away her title as America’s hottest swimmer.

Gold:  former Cuban President Fidel Castro. When the Cuban Olympic team did not meet expectations — and a Cuban taekwondo athlete kicked a refugee referee in the face after being disqualified from a bronze medal match — Castro managed to blame corporate interests, the mafia, European chavinism, dirty referees (including the one who got kicked in the face), the United States — basically everyone already on his enemies list.  He also preemptively attacked officials at the 2012 games, in the apparent assumption that Cuba would not perform well there either.

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Yesterday, I blogged on the decline of the Cuban Olympic team’s performance, and speculated that Castro wouldn’t talk about it.

Silly me.

Here is some of what he said in Granma today.  His doctors might want to think about increasing his oxygen ration.  Translation via (and hat tip to) Cuban Colada:

Regarding Angel Matos, the Cuban tae kwon do guy who kicked a referee in the face, Fidel says that Matos did the right thing:

The referee suspended the fight when [Matos] was winning, 3 to 2. . . . Amazed by a decision that seemed to him totally unfair, he protested and aimed a kick at the referee.  His own coach had been the object of a bribe attempt. He was predisposed and indignant. He could not contain himself. . . .To our taekwondo athlete and his coach go our total solidarity.

So maybe I was wrong — maybe Matos can run for vice president.  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that a man who can rationalize human rights abuses will find a kick to the face wholly unpersuasive.

Regarding Cuba’s dismal performance in boxing, which is usually a strength, Fidel had this to say:

I saw when the judges shamelessly robbed two Cuban boxers in the semifinals. Our boys [...] hoped to win despite the judges, but it was futile: they were condemned in advance. I did not see [Emilio] Correa’s fight; he was also robbed. I am not obliged to keep silent about the Mafia. It managed to evade the rules of the Olympic Committee. What they did to the young men in our boxing team, to complement the job of those who engage in stealing Third-World athletes, was criminal. In their viciousness, they left Cuba without a single Olympic gold medal in that discipline.

I decided to give Fidel the benefit of the doubt on this one, so I checked who were the winners of boxing gold medals.  Here are the countries whence the gold medal-winners came:

Capitalist Running Dogs and Their Lackeys:

• Italy
• Ireland
• United Kingdom
• Ukraine

Friends, Comrades and “Third World Athletes”

• Kazakhstan
• Russia (2 medals)
• Mongolia
• China
• Thailand

So your final score, ladies and gentlemen: Comrades 6, Running Dogs 4.

Gee Fidel, the “Mafia” sorta screwed themselves, didn’t they?  Especially when you consider the fact that three of the four Cuban losses were to “Third World Athletes.”  And for the record, the Cubans did win eight medals in boxing, just not any golds.

Regarding baseball, Fidel said that Cuba’s performance was “exemplary” and that the South Korean team, which beat Cuba in the final, was “an excellent team.”  But he blamed the decision to drop baseball from the Olympics on “the interests of the big commercial corporations” [sic].

As opposed to, say, the big corporations (and the IOC) dropping baseball because that commercial corporation, Major League Baseball, is refusing to release its players in the middle of the season.  If MLB actually ever did that, it would hurt the chances of the Cuban team, which no longer would find it significantly better than the rest of the amateur world.  That’s exactly what happened during the World Baseball Cup last year.

Fidel closes with a preemptive strike on London 2012:

There will be European chauvinism, referee corruption, the purchase of muscles and brains, an unaffordable cost, and a strong dose of racism.

That’s not exactly a ringing vote of confidence in your national sports programs:  we’re going to suck and it will be the capitalists’ fault.  Except for the tourists who pay all those Euros to visit our lovely prostitutes beaches.

Fidel also should go back and watch the U.K. section of the closing ceremonies.  The British are doing way too much ecstasy to try any of these things.

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Has anyone noticed the decline of Cuba as an Olympic power?

Communist countries have long used a factory system to create large numbers of successful Olympic athletes: identify young people who are athletically gifted, force them to learn a particular sport, and ruthlessly cull until you identify as many Olympic champions as possible.  Cuba was perhaps the best example of a small country using the system to its advantage.

This is what Fidel Castro once said about the Cuban Olympic program:

What has Cuba’s role been in the Olympic Games? What has it achieved? What has been the fruit of our efforts to promote healthy clean sports? At the 1972 Olympics, we finished 14th among 122 countries. At the Montreal Olympics in 1976. . . we finished 8th among 88 participating countries. In 1980, in Moscow we finished 4th among 81 countries; in 1992, in Spain we finished 5th among 169 countries; and in Atlanta, in 1996 we finished 8th among 197 countries. Could anyone refuse these figures?

The Cubans boycotted the 1984 and 1988 games, which is why Castro does not mention those years.  So given their history, I wondered what they’ve been doing this time around:

Cuba’s Angel Matos deliberately kicked a referee square in the face after he was disqualified in a bronze-medal match, prompting the World Taekwondo Federation to recommend Matos be banned for life. Matos was winning 3-2, with 1:02 left in the second round, when he fell to the mat after being hit by his opponent, Kazakhstan’s Arman Chilmanov. Matos was sitting there, awaiting medical attention, when he was disqualified for taking too much injury time. . . . Matos angrily questioned the call, pushed a judge, then pushed and kicked referee Chakir Chelbat of Sweden, who required stitches in his lip. Matos spat on the floor and was escorted out.

You can find the photo of Matos kicking the referee’s face here.

In fairness to Cuba, this could have been an athlete from any country.  But it’s clear that we’ve not seen Cuban athletes play a prominent role this time around.  Certainly no superstars like Alberto Juantorena or Teofilo Stevenson.  So I wanted to see where they were in the medal count compared to past years:

The 2008 figures are through last night (Saturday).  If you use the Chinese (gold medals count) system, the Cubans are tied for 27th out of 79 countries that have won medals.  If you use the American (total medals) system, they are ranked 12th.

What strikes me here is that while the total number of medals is not that far off their previous average, the number of golds is down significantly.  Their only two champions are Mijain Lopez in the 120 kg men’s Greco-Roman wrestling and Dayron Robles in the men’s 110m hurdles.

Cuba has suffered from a large number of defections over the past sixteen years, so that may be part of the what’s happened.  But I think it’s something deeper than that.  With Fidel’s decline, has sports become less important?  What are the official government organs making of this?

Something tells me that Fidel isn’t going to be bragging about these numbers.

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Who needs singing cats when you can have dancing caudillos?  Via Cuban Colada:

New York producers Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza are lining up… a [new] Broadway show… Havana… “a new musical about the days leading up to Fidel Castro’s takeover of Cuba” and that it will cost “between $12 million to $15 million” to produce. No details as to who will write the script or compose the music.

Wasn’t that a bad Robert Redford/Sydney Pollack movie?  Why would you want to base it on something so ponderously dull?  Of course someone once did a musical based on James Joyce’s The Dead,  so I guess there’s worse source material out there.

But if they do go forward, I know what they should call it:

Damn Yanquis.

The devil agrees to let Fidelito rule Cuba, imprison and torture opponents, destroy the economy, and drive America bananas — all in return for Castro’s soul.

Hilarity ensues, especially when Antonio Banderas, reprising his role as Che from Evita, sings “What Guevara Wants.”  With Harvey Fierstein as Fidel, Neil Patrick Harris as the devil, and featuring Nathan Lane as that wacky, wacky Dwight D. Eisenhower!

If Sprecher and Forlenza are interested, I have some other ideas for them:

• Stop the Gulag I Want to Get Out
• Springtime for Hitler
• Schindler’s List of Guys and Dolls
• Oh Kampuchea!
• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Cultural Revolution
• Hello Idi
• The Sound of Screaming
• Sunday in the Detention Camp with Pol Pot
• The Commissars (”Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick are arresting!” — New York Post)
• Surveillance Camera on the Roof (the plot’s from 1984 and the music is from Fiddler!!)
• La Cage á Guantanamo
• Maim
• Rent Limb-from-Limb

Hat tip: Cuban Colada

Images and photo courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.

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