“The White House has conceded everything and gained little.” That was U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio’s knee-jerk, exile-community-pander response to the announcement of the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Basically, the president was weak, dumb and traitorous. Yada, yada, ay Dios.
Rubio later joined fellow South Florida GOPsters Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in promising to use their positions to block efforts by the president to fund initiatives that would make it easier for people to travel to Cuba, use U.S. bank cards there and for the two countries to open consulates in each other’s countries.
The short, (sanitized) answer to Rubio:
“Gained little? In exchange for getting 3/5 of the Cuban Five, the Castro government freed Alan Gross, a U.S. intelligence agent and 53 political prisoners. Whose side got one-sided?
“You want Havana to have elections and other democratic trappings that half our trade partners and “allies” don’t have? Unless you’re pondering “The Bay of Pigs, The Sequel,” it would be to max out on opening Cuba to U.S. influence. Cuba is economically dysfunctional and ideologically perverse, but it’s not North Korea. This is a difference maker. Finally.
“Normalizing relations would be a humanitarian plus to families on both sides of the Florida Straits. Geopolitically, it would send the message–especially in our own Hemisphere–that we are ending a vendetta-driven, Cold War relationship with a sovereign country that means us no harm. And economically, no state would benefit more than the one you ostensibly represent.
“Enough with the obstructionist lectures and exile rhetoric. Try transcending Little Havana on this one and representing the best interests of your country and your state.”