Obama links McCain to Bush on Cuba
Posted: Friday, May 23, 2008 4:11 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
MIAMI -- Democrats often argue that McCain would be a “third Bush term” on Iraq and the economy, but today Obama linked the presumptive GOP nominee and President Bush on yet another issue: Cuban relations.
Speaking at a Cuban Independence Day celebration here, Obama delivered what advisors called a “major policy speech” on the United States’ relationship with Central and South America, but he still found plenty of opportunity to throw some punches on McCain’s policy towards our neighbors to the south.
“Instead of offering a strategy, a strategy for change, [McCain] chose to distort my position, embrace George Bush’s, and continue a policy that’s done nothing to advance freedom for the Cuban people,” Obama said, referring to a speech McCain delivered in Miami earlier in the week. “That’s the political posture that John McCain has chosen, and all it shows is that you can’t take his so-called straight talk seriously.”
How did McCain distort Obama’s position you may ask? “John McCain’s been going around the country talking about how much I want to meet with Raul Castro, as if I’m looking for a social gathering, I’m going to invite him over and have some tea. That’s not what I said, John McCain knows it. After eight years of the disastrous policies of George Bush, it is time to pursue direct diplomacy, with friend and foe alike, without preconditions.”
The decision over which foreign leaders to talk to as president and what conditions to set on these hypothetical talks has become a hotly contested issue in this pseudo-general election campaign between Obama and McCain. As previously noted here, this is one of those rare instances where both sides see this as a winning issue.
And in response to Obama, McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said, "Senator Obama's promises of unilateral concessions to Cuba’s dictators even in advance of an unconditional summit meeting with Raul Castro is exactly the wrong approach to free the people of Cuba."
In his speech today, Obama called for the reinstatement of the Special Envoy for the Americas in the White House, and for loosening some of the restrictions placed on Cuban-Americans by the Bush Administration. “I will immediately allow unlimited family travel and remittances to the island,” he said. “It’s time to let Cuban-Americans see their mothers and their fathers, their sisters and their brothers. It’s time to let Cuban-American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime.”
And in a briefing before the speech, Obama’s foreign policy advisers conceded that if certain conditions were met -- such as releasing political prisoners and allowing increased freedoms within Cuba -- loosening the trade embargo would also be on the table if Obama were president.
