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| NOTE: This is an occasional piece, unrelated to the weekly economic analysis piece that is circulated over the weekends, which will, of course, continue. ---- |
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The New York Times: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
Monday's editorial would be hilarious if it were not that so many liberals fail to see the humor. The Old Grey Lady is concerned about "A New Cuban Exodus," driven by "hopelessness at home ...and fear that the unique treatment Cuban immigrants receive from Washington could end, now that diplomatic relations have been restored." Under existing law, Cubans who reach our shores have an automatic right to settle here and in short order to apply for citizenship.
Bad policy, and should be reversed, say the editors. First, the Castros don't like it, so it is "hindering the normalization of relations" with Cuba. Second, it gives the Cuban regime "a pretext to impose strict controls on its people," something the editors of the New York Times must assume it would not do absent our provocation. Third, it prevents our government from conducting the type of "thorough security vetting" other immigrants receive. That howler is one of the paper's all-time best: we are more in danger of terrorism from people who are escaping their island prison than we are from the Syrian immigrants the NYT is so eager for us to welcome despite FBI warnings that in many cases we have no way to check their stories. There's more: "The United States should also end a separate program that encourages Cuban medical professionals on government assignments abroad to defect to the United States."
Of course, any Cuban who dares go to the U.S. embassy, and is admitted by us (as they were not when the embassy re-opened), can apply for a visa on the grounds of persecution. Which he surely would be the moment he steps out of the building and into the waiting arms of the security cops who surely monitor the comings and goings from our embassy, and who, according to the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, made 7,686 political arrests by November 30 - with a full month to go before more poor souls find themselves peering through bars on New Year's Eve, by which time the president hopes to have turned loose another batch of Guantanamo inmates, with which he and the New York Times seem to have more sympathy than with the involuntary guests of the Castro regime.
We can only hope that the Times's sympathy for the tender feelings of the Castros, and lack of same for Cubans who want out, and the editors' demand that our doors be slammed shut in the faces of those yearning to breathe free, does not morph into a demand that escapees be forced to return to Cuba and the tender mercies of the Castros. That would put a serious crimp in the plans of several U.S. baseball teams to make it to the World Series.
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