By Al Kamen.
The Washington Post.
Monday, April 9, 2001; Page A17
President Bush spoke often during the campaign about "changing the tone"
in Washington, lowering the rhetoric that makes working things out more
difficult. But some folks may not be getting the message.
Take, for example a recent news conference by the three Cuban American House
members -- Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and
Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) -- to highlight their bill that would allow Washington
to give direct assistance to Cuba's internal opposition. Radio Marti preempted
regular programming to cover it live from Diaz-Balart's office.
Diaz-Balart started off amiably enough, talking about Rep. Charles B. Rangel
(D-N.Y.). "Rangel is no fool," he said. "He may be other things,
but a fool he isn't. But there is another group of cretins and imbeciles in
Congress. Castro confuses them with things like these scholarships [Doesn't Rep.
Jose E. Serrano (D-N.Y.) have a scholarship program?]. . . . People like Rangel
are not confused. But there are a series of cretins there -- well, I better stop
talking about them because if I continue I'm not going to speak very
diplomatically."
No, no, please, go on. "I lived in Spain during Franco's time," he
said, though it must have been as a student because Franco was ruled finally --
officially -- dead in 1975, when Diaz-Balart was 21. "And by the way,
compared with the Castro tyranny, Franco -- who was quite a tyrant -- was a
Little Sister of Charity."
When a lawmaker visits Cuba, Diaz-Balart said, he sees approved dissidents
and "he returns impressed with the dinners of roast piglets, lobster and
caviar that Castro gives them" and thus comes home talking about lifting
the embargo without demanding free elections, legal political parties and
freeing political prisoners." (Some folks say they only got the lobsters.)
So "when these cretin congressmen go over there," Diaz-Balart
said, "ask them" to support the three Cuban American lawmakers "who
struggle day by day to stop American businessmen from profiting with the
apartheid economy in Cuba" until there's real change.
How about at least "the honorable cretin" or maybe "my
distinguished imbecile"?
© 2001 The Washington Post Company | 