September 10, 2007

We'll be here

For those who can't (or perhaps don't want to) see the reasoning behind my post earlier today let me pre-masticate it for you.

The WSJ article I fisked this morning did not contain a single factual error. But it was biased as all get out.

You see, we've been reading this same story about "new generations" of "moderate" Cuban-Americans being repackaged by the media again and again despite any credible evidence and when it's the WSJ that does it, it hurts much more.

Yes he quotes Ninoska Perez-Castellon, but cherry picks her statements to try to make her look bad. And yes Sopo brings up the FIU poll, and not Phillips, but Phillips is too lazy to dig deeper into the poll. So although, what he wrote isn't factually incorrect, but it's only one side of the picture. He also gives Sopo and his sympathizers the first and last word in the article.

My reason for bringing up the other data points in the oft-used FIU survey is that there's a wide variety of options that our leaders have from lifting the embargo and normalizing relations to an all out invasion of the island at the other extreme. But the dialoguero position is the only one that gets any publicity, even if more people say they want to see an exile invasion of Cuba (which they do). Again it's an attempt to characterize the exile community as "moderating". If favoring a US or exile invasion of Cuba is moderate, show me an intransigent.

It's a subtle manipulation but it's a manipulation nonetheless. Obama will fade eventually and the election will come and the Republican candidate will have the support of at least 2/3 of Cuban Americans in South Florida and nobody will take these clowns in the media to task...

Except us.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at September 10, 2007 06:55 PM

Comments

Henry, your graph says it all. I don't know how many years I've been hearing that the Cuban vote is breaking up. Wishful thinking on their part. Hey, you think someone we all know is jealous that this Sopo stole the limelight as the token Democrat?

Posted by: ruth [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 10, 2007 07:12 PM

Typekey doesn't seem to believe in accents! Mambi is supposed to be the handle. Anyway, I'm new to this site and am learning a lot. I have a question though, what exactly is meant by "exile invasion?"

Posted by: Mambí [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 10, 2007 08:09 PM

Henry, if the Republican candidate for president gets only 2/3 of the Cuban vote next year, then something is moving. (They got more than 80% in 2000 and 2004.)

But we will see.

Posted by: Eduardo [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 10, 2007 08:14 PM

Mambi,

Current US law prohibits the planning of and/or launching of an invasion on Cuba by private citizens. This was not always the case. There were many covert operation during the 60s (some US government sponsored and some not) against the regime. But over time the US government's position changed and today you can go to jail (many have) for posessing weapons that are for use against Cuba. The point of my post was to say that there's a wide range of things the US might do ranging from complete normalization of relations with Cuba at one extreme to landing a division of Marines in Cuba at the other extreme. Slightly less extreme than that is to allow Cuban exiles (they aren't all old, there's plenty of recent arrivals with military experience from Cuba that might participate in such an action). The media says Cubans are in favor of unrestricted travel to Cuba but doesn't say that Cubans are also in favor of changing the law to allow exiles to confront the regime.

Posted by: Henry "Conductor" Gomez [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 10, 2007 09:59 PM


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