“It has become a recurring theme of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s early travels as the chief diplomat of the United States: she says that American policy on a given issue has failed, and her foreign listeners fall all over themselves in
gratitude.
“On Friday, Mrs. Clinton said here that the uncompromising policy of the Bush administration toward Cuba had not worked.”
The NYT refers to this, without intending any sarcasm, as Hillary’s “contrition tour,” part of the larger Obama administration project of “paving a new road. It is recognition of the fact that previous policies have failed. Fifty years of a policy that has not generated the originally sought purposes can be called a failure.”
There’s nothing easier than showing contrition for someone else’s sins, perceived or actual. Obama showed how this works over the weekend when he expressed gratitude that Marxist Daniel Ortega’s diatribe against America didn’t include Obama personally, as he was only three months old during the Bay of Pigs.
Of course, Obama wasn’t traveling to Trinidad-Tobago as a private citizen, but as President of the United States--successor, hard as it still is to believe, of all former American presidents for the past half-century, including Kennedy, who believed a tough stance against Castro was in order.
There’s certainly room for debate as to whether or not the fifty-year embargo against Cuba accomplished its original purpose, as Hillary claims it did not. But is the point really what will or won't work wth Cuba? Isn't all this really about buying the world's affections with promises that gruff old Uncle Sam is gone now and replaced with President O'Barney's I-love-you, you-love-me foreign policy?
Asked whether the United States would build bridges to hostile Latin American leaders, like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, Mrs. Clinton said, “Let’s put ideology aside; that is so yesterday.”
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