“So it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to American national security if you sit down and give respect and prestige to leaders of countries that are bent on your destruction or the destruction of other countries. I won’t do it my friends,” McCain said to a town hall-style meeting in Little Havana, the heart of Florida’s Cuban-American community and stronghold of the anti-Castro movement.
Obama’s plan to soften the decades-old U.S. embargo against the Cuban regime would “send the worst possible signal to Cuba’s dictators,” McCain said.
[snip]
McCain cited Obama’s response to a 2003 questionnaire about his policy toward Cuba, in which the Illinois senator wrote: “I believe that normalization of relations with Cuba would help the oppressed and poverty-stricken Cuban people while setting the stage for a more democratic government once Castro inevitably leaves the scene.”
Obama has said he would like to ease stringent U.S. travel restrictions toward Cuba, granting Cuban-Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island.
During the Feb. 21 Democratic presidential debate at the University of Texas in Austin, Obama said, “It is important for the United States not just to talk to its friends but also to talk to its enemies. In fact, that’s where diplomacy makes the biggest difference.”
He added that he would meet with Raul Castro “without preconditions,” but acknowledged that there must be “preparation.” The U.S. must ensure that Cuba has “an agenda” in place that addresses “human rights, releasing of political prisoners” and “opening up the press,” he said.
McCain said Tuesday that his administration will oppose softening the economic embargo unless the Cuban government meets certain conditions.
But now it seems that his wife Cindy's money, which has bankrolled his entire career in Washington (other than the favors he's done businesses in return for campaign contributions), may have a little conflict with his "straight talk" on Cuba because of the coming takeover of Anheuser-Busch by the Belgian company InDev -- because Belgium has no such trade restrictions with Cuba:
The pending merger of American beer giant Anheuser-Busch and a Belgian company that brews and sells beer in Cuba is thrusting John McCain into the middle of thorny Cuba-U.S. relations.
McCain's wife, Cindy, owns the third largest Anheuser-Busch distributor in the country — which means she would stand to profit by partnering with a company that is in business with the Cuban government.
McCain is a staunch advocate of the embargo, which bars most American companies from doing business in Cuba. Among the yet-to-be-resolved issues in the $52 billion deal is whether Belgian giant InBev — expected to operate under the name Anheuser-Busch-InBev — will continue to market its Cuban line of beer, and what that may mean for U.S. distributors.
Two of McCain's top Florida supporters, Miami Reps. Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, assailed the InBev-Anheuser Busch deal earlier this month, saying they are "deeply concerned'' that Anheuser-Busch is about to be purchased by a company "with ties to the Cuban dictatorship, a state sponsor of terrorism.''
A spokesman for the Diaz-Balarts said Tuesday night the two congressmen stand by their statement.
Complicating matters for McCain: A Cuban exile family with a long tradition of brewing beer in pre-Castro Cuba claims that InBev has illegally been using the trademark beer name Cristal, which the family created in Cuba before its company was seized by Fidel Castro's government in 1960.
"There are legal figleafs that can be applied here, but the crux of the situation is that property rights are being trampled on,'' said Nicolas Gutierrez, an attorney for Key Biscayne's Blanco Herrera family.
According to financial disclosure statements, Cindy McCain also owns stock in Anheuser-Busch and would stand to make as much as $2 million in profit if she sells the shares after the merger.
If either of the Obamas, or the Clintons, or any other Democratic "power couple" had even this remote a tie with a company that does business with Cuba, the Republicans would be all over the TeeVee screaming their heads off about how Democrats support a state sponsor of terrorism. Instead, this response is typical:
"Making a connection between InBev, John McCain and Cuba policy is a ridiculous stretch of the imagination,'' said Ana Navarro of Miami, who has known McCain for years and serves as a co-chair of his National Hispanic Advisory Council. "First, because John McCain has nothing to do with the operation of his wife's business and secondly, her business has nothing to do with Anheuser-Busch's sale. Does Publix (a grocery store chain) control the decisions of Frito-Lay?''
The idea that John McCain has nothing to do with the operation of his wife's business and so that makes it all OK is ridiculous. He lives in homes paid for by his wife's business. He uses his wife's private plane for his campaign. His entire lifestyle is, and his entry into Beltway Insiderdom was paid for with Hensley money. Their assets may be separate, but to deny that John McCain benefits heavily from Cindy Hensley McCain's assets is preposterous on the face of it.
Of course Democrats will be silent on this, because this is a field on which they still refuse to play, but also because many Democrats DO favor normalizing relations with Cuba. But the issue here isn't Cuba; it's yet another example of the hypocrisy of John McCain, and another example of how the rules are different when the money has an (R) stamped on it.
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