Quotes of the Day
“Not so along go Senator Obama favored complete normalization of relations with Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Last night, he said that as president he’d meet with the imprisoned island’s new leader ‘without preconditions.’ So Raul Castro gets an audience with an American president, and all the prestige such a meeting confers, without having to release political prisoners, allow free media, political parties, and labor unions, or schedule internationally monitored free elections.
“Instead, Senator Obama says he would meet Cuba’s dictator without any such steps in the hope that talk will make things better for Cuba’s oppressed people. Meet, talk, and hope may be a sound approach in a state legislature, but it is dangerously naive in international diplomacy where the oppressed look to America for hope and adversaries wish us ill.”
–Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in a statement regarding Sen. Barack Obama’s comments in Thursday night’s Democratic debate that he would be willing to meet without preconditions with Cuban leader Raul Castro.
“John McCain would give us four more years of the same Bush-McCain policies that have failed U.S. interests and the Cuban people for the last fifty years. My policy will b
e based on the principle of liberty for the Cuban people, and I will seek that goal through strong and direct presidential diplomacy, and an immediate change in policy to allow for unlimited family visitation and remittances to the island.”
–Obama, in a statement in response to McCain’s attack.
For details on all of the candidates’ stances on U.S. policy toward Cuba, see CFR.org’s Issue Tracker.
