November 14, 2006

Look what the cat dragged in!

Oscar Corral has finally come out of seclusion to author an article about the federal government's programs to help dissidents and opposition groups in Cuba. The supposed fruit of a 2-year long investigation, the article is remarkable in its blandness. The grand revelation: Government programs are wasteful and often don't work as well as we would like.

One can see the usual attempt to paint Cuban-Americans as easily-duped rubes. The argument goes that whoever talks a big game on Cuba gets elected. But that fallacy doesn't hold water, no matter how many times partisan Democrats like Joe Garcia say it's so. There was never a mass migration of Cubans away from Republicans toward Clinton and the Democratic party. The fact is that the only measures that Clinton took that could be characterized as proactive in any light came only after castro had two american civilian aircraft shot down, killing four Cuban-Americans. As Peter Orr affirms in the article, Clinton only cared about getting elected, and he did not want a mass Cuban migration that might jeopardize that.

It's obvious that the original intent of this story was thwarted by Herald management that doesn't want to further alienate its declining readership after a series of unfortunate missteps. Remember that Corral was the author of the shoddy article that resulted in several firings and re-hirings and the resignation of the newspaper's publisher, Jesus Diaz Jr. The measured, less inflammatory tone of this article is probably the result of a lot of introspection by Tom Fiedler and the other editors at the paper. Which I think is a good thing.

Still, It seems that Corral is arguing that since the programs don't generally provide for direct cash aid to the people it's trying to help, that it's a failure. Only after 1500 words in a 1900-word piece, does Captain Obvious make this understatement of the century:

The Cuban government considers the USAID program subversive and imprisons or harasses Cubans who dissent.

castro calls all dissidents agents of the imperialistic United States and we saw in the recent UN vote condemning the embargo (and 14 that preceded it) that almost every country in the world lines up to parrot fidel's accusations regardless of what they are. I wonder what Corral's article would have looked like if, in fact, the US was paying dissidents. Believe me it wouldn't have been flattering. The headline would read something like: "Cuban Dissidents accept US pay."

So what do the programs try to do? They try to get simple items into Cuba so that dissidents (who are on the margins of Cuban society since they can't work) can live. They also try to keep dissidents on the island informed of other activities and acts of dissent. Obviously in a totalitarian country one of the problems with organizing an opposition is the isolation of people that may have anti-government sentiments.

All in all, the article is pretty pointless. Just an excuse to throw around some big dollar figures that are miniscule in light of government pork barrel projects that ARE intended to gain the support of voters. The other big revelation? That government officials didn't agree on the tactics. Quick, call the Pulitzer folks!

If this is what took Corral over a month to write, then perhaps the folks at 1 Herald Plaza should investigate where ITS money is going.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at November 14, 2006 09:31 PM

Comments

I was hoping to find an in depth analysis of the presumed new RNC Chief......

Posted by: TBinSTL [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2006 10:49 PM

What's there to tell about Martinez? He's not an ideologue, he's a loyal party operative who was rewarded with a cabinet seat in Bush's first administration. A trial attorney that I believe was president of the Florida Bar Association though I might be mistaken (it may have only been Central Florida). He's from the Orlando area, not a "Miami Cuban." Like most members of the Billionaire boys club (the US Senate), he has deep personal pockets.

Posted by: conductor [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2006 11:12 PM

Henry, you should be writing for the Herald. Seriously, I wonder what Oscar's true calling is, because it sure isn't journalism.

Posted by: Ziva [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 14, 2006 11:37 PM

Yaaawn... so there are no new revelations in this piece. Is this what Corral has been holed up writing all this time? Or perhaps he was advised to shelf his next hit piece and settle for something more sedate (as in, "boring")?

"Bland" was a good adjective for it.

Posted by: Gigi [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2006 12:06 AM

HELPING CUBA GET FREE INFO SHOUD BE APPLAUDED NOT INVESTIGATED LIKE.IN TOPPLING TOTALITARIANISM

Posted by: caimano [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2006 12:53 AM

Considering what a piss-poor job Corral did on his Marti moonlighters article of 9/8, and how much trouble that caused the Herald, it seems strange that he has remained apparently unscathed and in good standing with the organization. If they weren't going to fire him, there should have been not only a formal reprimand but also some sort of probation period, at least for PR purposes. Yet here he is, barely 2 months later, with a front-page article.

I don't get it. He's not a "name" journalist like a Bob Woodward; he's not even a local "name" like Carl Hiaasen. It's true that the editorial staff at the Herald shares the blame for approving that shoddy 9/8 article as it ran, so maybe they're protecting Corral to protect themselves, but it still seems odd. It's sending a bad message to the Cuban community, sort of like, "So Corral screwed with you; so what?".

Posted by: asombra [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2006 10:21 AM

I'm not a fan of Corral by any stretch, but fault for the Sept. 8th article falls mainly with the editors and management at the Herald. They heard that The Chicago Tribune was going to do a story on Herald journalists that were moonlighting for Radio Marti and decided to break the story themselves to try to neutralize it. The panic caused piss poor judgment and an incomplete story with a gazillion holes in it was allowed to be published. And they say the problem with new media is that we get don't get it right many times because we try to get it fast. Well that's exactly what happened in this case.

Posted by: conductor [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 15, 2006 11:07 AM


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