Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant Read Online Free PDF Page B

nation.” That’s Senator Dodd speaking at the National Press Club in September 2002.
    “There is no acceptable justification for the trade embargo or the diplomatic isolation of Cuba,” writes former senator George McGovern. “The economic boycott of Cuba is a failure.” For thirty years he’s been banging the drums against it. He includes, of course, the obligatory dismissal of those who fled Castro’s tyranny: “I wouldn’t let a handful of noisy Cuban exiles in south Florida dictate our Cuba policy.” 5 (Emphasis mine.)
    By the way, notice McGovern’s use of “our.” Call me overly sensitive, but he seems to imply that those “noisy Cuban exiles” (United States citizens like me) don’t qualify as gen-you-wine Americans. Imagine the repercussions, the media and Democratic caterwauling, if, say, Trent Lott or Tom DeLay expressed similar sentiments about any other ethnic group in America.
    George McGovern—a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner (awarded by Bill Clinton)—is a longtime fan of the great Fidel. McGovern says his frequent Cuban host is “very shy, sensitive, witty.... I frankly liked him.” 6 The Cuban Maximum Leader first hosted his American admirer in 1975. In May 1977, the bedazzled McGovern wrote a travelogue of his visit in—where else?—the New York Times . Fidel took McGovern on an “impromptu” jeep ride into the countryside. Occasionally they stopped. “Everywhere we were surrounded by laughing children who obviously loved Fidel Castro!” wrote the rapt gentleman from South Dakota. 7
    Alas, McGovern’s visit also had a practical and humanitarian purpose. “In my pocket,” wrote McGovern, “I carried a letter from the Boston Red Sox pitcher Luis Tiant requesting that his parents be permitted to leave Havana to see him play in Boston. . . . Castro assured me this could be arranged,” gushed McGovern. 8
    How touching. Some people might have asked themselves: What’s wrong with this picture? Why should a “president” decide whether Luis Tiant’s parents travel to see their son pitch in the United States? And why should I be praising one who does?
    Today, McGovern tells us that economic sanctions are “unjustifiable” and “always fail.” Fine, let’s rewind to your own congressional voting record in the late 1970s, senator. Let’s stop on your views regarding Rhodesia, Chile, and Nicaragua. Very interesting indeed. Turns out, sir, that you thundered to impose sanctions against all three.
    Liberal Democrats, it turns out are a lot like the Hollywood (and music industry) Left when it comes to double standards about Cuba.
    Carole King sang her little heart out for John Kerry during campaign fund-raisers in 2004. Bonnie Raitt did too, after her first choice, Howard Dean, went screaming out of the primaries. Both Carole and Bonnie have also proudly played in Castro’s Cuba. Carole went in February 2002 and serenaded the Maximum Leader with a heartfelt “You’ve Got a Friend.” Bonnie Raitt visited in March 1999 and stopped hyperventilating just long enough to compose a song in Castro’s honor, “Cuba Is Way Too Cool!” Among the lyrics: “It’s just a happy little island!” and “Big bad wolf [that’s us, folks, the United States] you look the fool!” 9
    With Woody Harrelson gyrating beside her, the rapidly oxidizing chanteuse—she of the big red hair and the famous gray roots—rasped out her ditty at Havana’s Karl Marx Theater. The occasion was “Music Bridges Over Troubled Waters” back in March 1999.
    “Rock Against Freedom” sounds much better to me. A beaming Jimmy Buffet came on after Bonnie. Then came Joan Osborne, REM’s Peter Buck, and former Police-men Andy Summers and Stuart Copeland. In between crooning and strumming, these cheeky free spirits all dutifully recited their scripts against the “embargo.” (How did Jackson Browne miss this?) Against South Africa a decade earlier, of course, their script called for an embargo. “I