Only Half the Democratic Field Sees Castro's Regime as a Bad Thing
If you caught last night's Democratic debate, watching increasingly bitter Democratic infighting is a really pleasant change of pace from increasingly bitter Republican infighting. One of the night's most surprising joys was tough questioning from Univision anchor Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas. She showed the audience and candidates video from 1985, where Bernie Sanders praised Fidel Castro: Sanders also commented on Fidel Castro, pointing to the lack of resistance to Castro as proof that Americans would be "very, very mistaken" to expect a popular uprising against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. "In 1959 [ . . . ] everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world and all of the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro," said Sanders. "They forgot that he educated their kids, gave their kids healthcare, totally transformed the society." "So they expected this tremendous uprising in Cuba," Sanders continued, but "it never came. And if they are expecting a tremendous uprising in Nicaragua, they are very, very, very mistaken." Then, when given to chance to attribute those comments to the naïve, foolish thoughts of an . . . er . . . 44-year-old, Sanders just kept going: SALINAS: In retrospect, have you ever regretted the characterizations of Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro that you made in 1985? SANDERS: The key issue here was whether the United States should go around overthrowing small Latin American countries. I think that that was a mistake . . . SALINAS: You didn't answer the question. SANDERS: . . . both in Nicaragua and Cuba. Look, let's look at the facts here. Cuba is, of course, an authoritarian undemocratic country, and I hope very much as soon as possible it becomes a democratic country. But on the other hand . . . (APPLAUSE) . . . on the other hands, it would be wrong not to state that in Cuba they have made some good advances in health care. They are sending doctors all over the world. They have made some progress in education. It was up to Hillary Clinton -- Hillary Clinton! -- to point out what the Castro regime actually does: He praised what he called the revolution of values in Cuba and talked about how people were working for the common good, not for themselves. I just couldn't disagree more. You know, if the values are that you oppress people, you disappear people, you imprison people or even kill people for expressing their opinions, for expressing freedom of speech, that is not the kind of revolution of values that I ever want to see anywhere. Cuban Americans are increasingly shifting to the Democrats. You have to think that Hillary Clinton will do pretty well among this demographic in Florida's Democratic primary. Hillary: I Still Think the Benghazi Attack Was Partially Caused by a Video Jorge Ramos, I don't know if the conservative movement as a whole will say, "All is forgiven," but the next time somebody calls you a liberal hack, we have to point out that it was the Univision anchor who confronted Hillary Clinton with Patricia Smith's accusation that Hillary lied to her face at her son's funeral. An extraordinary exchange: JORGE RAMOS: I want to continue with the issue of trust. Secretary Clinton, on the night of the attacks in Benghazi, you are sent an e-mail to your daughter Chelsea saying that an al-Qaeda-like group was responsible for the killing of the Americans. [AUDIENCE BOOS] However some of the families claim you lied to them. Here's Patricia Smith, the mother of the information officer Sean Smith. Listen. PATRICA SMITH [on the Fox News Channel, 10/23/15]: Hillary and Obama and Panetta and Biden and Susan Rice all told me it was a video when they knew it was not the video and they said that they would call me and let me know what the outcome was. RAMOS: Secretary Clinton, did you lie to them? HILLARY CLINTON: You know, look, I feel a great deal of sympathy for the families of the four brave Americans that we lost at Benghazi, and I certainly can't even imagine the grief that she has for losing her son, but she's wrong. She's absolutely wrong. I and everybody in the administration, all the people she named, the President, the Vice President, Susan Rice, we were scrambling to get information that was changing literally by the hour and when we had information, we made it public but then sometimes we had to go back and say we have new information that contradicts it, so I testified for 11 hours. Anybody who watched that and listened to it knows that I answered every question that I was asked and when it was over, the Republicans had to admit they didn't learn anything. Why? Because there had already been one independent investigation, there had been seven or eight congressional investigations, mostly led by Republicans who all reached the same conclusions, that there were lessons to be learned and this is not the first time we lost Americans in a terrorist attack. We lost 3,000 people on 9/11. We lost Americans serving in embassies in Tanzania and Kenya when my husband was President. We lost 250 Americans when Ronald Reagan was President in Beirut and at no other time were those tragedies politicized. Instead, people said let's learn the lesson and save lives and that's when I did. [CHEERS AND APPLAUSE] Notice nothing in Hillary's answer confirms or denies Smith's claim that she told her it was because of a video, or explains why Hillary e-mailed Chelsea it was a terror attack. Ramos did what we've been waiting for a debate moderator to do all cycle -- follow up on one of Hillary Clinton's word-salad answers. RAMOS: But Secretary Clinton, what they're saying is that -- what the families are saying is that you told your daughter Chelsea one thing and a different thing to them. CLINTON: Jorge, that makes my point. At the time I e-mailed with my daughter, a terrorist group had taken credit for the attacks on our facility in Benghazi. Within 16, 18 hours, they rescinded taking credit. They did it all on social media. And the video did play a role. We have captured one of the lead terrorists and he admits it was both a terrorist attack and it was influenced by the video. This was fog of war. This was complicated. The most effective, comprehensive reports and studies demonstrate that. Look, as I said in the beginning, I deeply regret that we lost four Americans. So here we are, four years later, and Hillary Clinton still insists it was partially because of a video. As the House Benghazi Committee pointed out: -Michael Morell, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, wrote in his May 2015 book The Great War of Our Time that while the CIA knew "the demonstration and violence in Cairo were sparked by people upset over a YouTube video," intelligence "analysts never said the video was a factor in the Benghazi attacks." (p. 205-206) -Morell also writes in his book that CIA analysts "complet[ed] their first full report on what happened" and provided it to "senior policy-makers and to Congress on the morning of September 13." He continues (bolded text for emphasis): "The September 13 piece -- the first piece to go beyond a simple factual update -- said four things. First, that the assault on the TMF [Temporary Mission Facility in Benghazi] had been a spontaneous event that evolved from a protest outside the TMF. Second, that the protest and subsequent attack had been motivated by what had happened in Cairo earlier in the day (there was no mention in the piece of the YouTube video defaming the Prophet Muhammad). Third, that there was evidence of extremist involvement in the attack, and by "extremists" the analysts absolutely meant terrorist involvement, because extremist and terrorist are synonyms to terrorism analysts. Indeed, the piece reported, that people with ties to al Qa'ida had been involved in the attack. The bottom line here is important: the analysts thought Benghazi was terrorism from the beginning. And whether or not the assault evolved from a protest, it was still very much a terrorist attack." (p. 218-219) Wait, there's more! Here's a State Department e-mail from staff on the ground in Tripoli on September 14, three days after the attack, saying that the video hadn't generated a big response in Libya and specifically asking others to not conflate the attack on Benghazi with the violent protests in Cairo: Here is the email in full, which was referenced in the hearing last week and is now being released publicly for the first time, with appropriate redactions: From: [redacted] To: [redacted] Subject: messaging on the attacks in Libya Date: Friday, September 14, 2012 6:43:39 AM Colleagues, I mentioned to [redacted] this morning, and want to share with all of you, our view at Embassy Tripoli that we must be cautious in our local messaging with regard to the inflammatory film trailer, adapting it to Libyan conditions. Our monitoring of the Libyan media and conversations with Libyans suggest that the films not as explosive of an issue here as it appears to be in other countries in the region. The overwhelming majority of the FB comments and tweets we've received from Libyans since the Ambassador's death have expressed deep sympathy, sorrow, and regret. They have expressed anger at the attackers, and emphasized that this attack does not represent Libyans or Islam. Relatively few have even mentioned the inflammatory video. So if we post messaging about the video specifically, we may draw unwanted attention to it. And it is becoming increasingly clear that the series of events in Benghazi was much more terrorist attack than a protest which escalated into violence. It is our opinion that in our messaging, we want to distinguish, not conflate, the events in other countries with this well-planned attack by militant extremists. I have discussed this with [redacted] and he shares PAS's view. Look, Hillary will shamelessly, blatantly, and egregiously lie whenever she needs to in order to avoid blame. Any voter who doesn't see that by now is hopelessly naïve. ADDENDA: Over at Hot Air, Jazz Shaw attempts to make the case for Trump to the #NeverTrump crowd. "With Donald Trump you at least have a chance that he'll come through with some of the things he's promising." That calculation presumes that you think that gamble is worth the damage Trump could or would do as president -- the damage he would do to the conservative movement, the Republican party, the country as a whole, and the tattered remains of constitutional governance. I think it reveals a great deal about your values if you're willing to accept a president who ignores the Constitutional limits on his powers and the powers of the government as a whole in exchange for a border wall.  | 
Comments
Post a Comment