New York Times commentary provides grist for anti-Bush diatribe
By I.J. Toby Westerman. © 2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. Friday August 4 2000.
Castro's Cuban government used a recent New York Times editorial to attack Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush and the party's platform.
According to official Cuban sources, the domestic policies of George W. Bush amount to only an "empty sales pitch;" the Republican Party platform seeks merely to form an "obtuse and less generous world"; and arrests of convention protesters are rife in Philadelphia, where "half
the population has no access to health care."
Citing an Aug. 1 Times editorial that expresses skepticism concerning Bush's commitment to education, the Cuban government of Fidel Castro questioned whether Bush's "noble rhetoric in favor of a more compassionate conservatism" is, in fact, "an empty sales pitch." The
Republican Party "defines a more obtuse and less generous world," because, in the words of the broadcast, the party platform stipulates that "the federal government will play virtually no role in designing the country's educative future."
The statements of the Cuban government were carried by Radio Habana Cuba, the official broadcasting service of the Cuban government.
The New York Times editorial parroted by Radio Habana referred to education as Bush's "signature issue," yet questioned the "genuine determination" of the Republican Party's nominee "toward a more activist role" in education.
While questioning Bush's commitment to greater federal intervention in education, both the Cuban government and the Cuban Communist Party continue to play a central role in "designing" their country's "educative future," according to the broadcast. Although education is free
in Cuba, it operates within the framework of a strict communist ideology, and for the purpose of advancing the Revolution.
Radio Habana drew attention to the number of demonstrators outside the Republican convention -- those who are protesting the "35 million Americans living in poverty," a poverty which is "increasing rapidly." The broadcast cited charges that "the only compassion the
Republicans have is for large corporations," adding that in Philadelphia, "one half of the population has no access to health care."
Though Radio Habana and its correspondent in Philadelphia described the protests outside the convention in near-heroic terms, Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, who also was in the area, referred to them as "suburban-bred socialists demanding to be arrested on camera."
While the Castro government and the New York Times carefully examine Bush for evidence of sincerity, Cuba remains a highly centralized, socialist dictatorship, critical of the United States and the free market.
Radio Habana has condemned the "market-driven economy" in the U.S. as a means to "keep the rich rich, the poor poor" as "more money drop(s) into the pockets of the people telling us that the economy is in great shape."
I.J Toby Westerman, a contributing editor to both WorldNet Magazine and WorldNetDaily.com, focuses on current events in the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Balkans. He can be reached at twesterman@worldnetdaily.com.
Editor's note: WND's multi-lingual reporter Toby Westerman specializes in monitoring global shortwave broadcasts and reading foreign-language news journals for information not readily available from the domestic press. Each month, Westerman presents a special in-depth report in WorldNetDaily's
monthly magazine, WorldNet. Readers may subscribe to WorldNet through WND's online store.
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