The Castros Are Getting Everything They Want From Obama

[Geee]

Heritage Foundation:

The White House decision to disinvite a Grammy-award winning jazz legend who is a strong defender of democracy in Cuba was nothing short of contemptible.

 

The fact that it has now embarrassingly backtracked and re-invited him proves it had acted like corporations that are only too happy to ignore human rights violations in exchange for future profits with Cuba until public pressure gets too intense.

 

In other words, engagement with the Castros is not changing them, as promised, it’s changing us—as many of us predicted. It bears repeating it: The Castros, like all dictators, are bacterial. You touch them and you become contaminated. We are diminishing ourselves, and for what? The Castros have rendered Cuba a pauperized state, with no money.

 

Paquito d’Rivera is Nantional Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master; holds honorary doctorates from the Berklee School of Music and University of Pennsylvania; is a Living Jazz Legend of the Kennedy Center and has won the Presidential Medal of the Arts. He’s already had the honor of playing at the White House, which belongs to all of us.