October 30, 2008
This post from May 23 is popping up in searches because Obama spoke in Kissimmee again yesterday, this time with Bill Clinton on the stage.
Here's a link to the Orlando paper's story about the event.
And here's a video of yesterday's event.
(The original post follows)
Obama was in Florida today where he also addressed the Cuban-American National Foundation, identified by Wikipedia as the most conservative of all Cuban American groups. The stated agenda for this group has been for years "dedicated to overthrowing the Cuban government of Fidel Castro and a transition to a pluralistic, market-based democracy in Cuba."
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This gesture on the part of Obama is the equivalent of Daniel walking into the lions' den. One of Barack Obama's best lines has been "I'm not gonna tell you what you want to hear. I'll tell you what you need to know." He did it in many places at the start of this campaign, telling various groups who were not expected to be part of his constituency words they may n0t have wanted to hear (teacher and auto union groups, pro-Israel groups, wives of the Congressional Black Caucus, etc.) but need to know about his positions. As he has said in a few speeches, "They didn't applaud."
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Those who accuse him of not being clear simply aren't paying attention. As Andrew Sullivan said, "There is a meme beginning to go around that he is vague and empty. If you do not know what Obama is proposing in many areas, it's only because you don't know how to use Google."
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What he's doing is about as plain as it can get without showing all his cards before the game is in play. Like it or not, aggressive diplomatic negotiation is the man's strong suit. That quality, resisting the cowboy diplomacy we have had since 9/11, is not to be confused with weakness.
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Current references to the Munich Analogy confusing diplomacy with appeasement are as disingenuous as mentioning Hitler and Nazis in an argument that does not include either of those terms. We need a corollary to Godwin's Law that covers the Munich Analogy when diplomacy is being discussed.
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The general election has already begun. George Bush may be a lame duck, but he's still a loyal Republican and shrewd politician. He knows the power of Cuban American votes in Florida which have been the tail wagging the foreign policy dog in that state for the last fifty years. No candidate since Castro has been willing to risk the Florida electoral college votes by rubbing that fur the wrong way. I was surprised by the whole Elian Gonzalez denouement because Clinton had to make a tough choice: family values (unite the child with his father) or politics (tell Castro and his regime to go to hell). His choice, surprisingly enough, found enough support that when Janet Reno ran for public office she received a respectible number of votes. As the person executing the Elian Gonzalez affair she should have done much worse.
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It is no acccident that the president saw fit this week to honor Willy Chirino, a Cuban American song writer whose Ya Viene Llegando is a kind of anthem for the Cuban American community. When I heard that Obama had been campaigning in South Florida my first instinct was to check out Val Parieto's Babalu Blog, gold standard for checking the pulse of that community, to see what the reaction might have been. That is where I discovered news of the White House event. Moreover, the blogmaster was a guest at that event and posted a moving dscription.
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After being invited to the White House, after having met an incredibly couple in Matthew and Cathy, after standing just 20 feet from the President of the United States of America as he delivered a galletazo sin mano to raul and co, after meeting incredible men and women whose family members are incarcerated in Cuba, and after hearing Chirino perform Ya Viene Llegando at the event, I had the absolute honor and privilege to sing the Cuban National Anthem in the White House.
Think about that for a second, folks. Just imagine yourself standing there among all those people who work for the freedom of Cuba, in the halls of history, where portraits of the founders of this nation adorn the halls and walls and where most of the most important decisions for this country and the world have been made, singing Al combate, corred, Bayameses...
I could barely muster the words as I was so moved at the moment, and even as I stood there in the White House realizing that I know the history of this country much better than the history of Cuba, I have never, ever, felt more Cuban than in those few moments singing La Bayamesa.
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It comes as no surprise that Obama's reception in some quarters of the Cuban American community was, shall we say, less than cordial. (Image at the link tells more about the source than I can describe in words.) But Obama's appeal to reason and diplomacy is why I prefer his approach to the macho efforts which clearly have not worked, given the decades they have been tried.
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