President Barack Obama declined Friday to say where he expects Cuba to be by the end of his presidency, after his decision to open formal relations with the country, but he did assert that the new policy will result in change.
“It would be unrealistic for me to map out exactly where Cuba will be. But change is going to come to Cuba,” Obama said at his end-of-the-year press conference. “It has to.”
“They’ve been reliant for years on subsidies from the Soviet Union and then on subsidies from Venezuela. Those can’t be sustained,” he continued. “And the more the Cuban people see what’s possible, the more interested they are going to be in change.”
“It could happen fast. It could happen slower than I would like,” he concluded. “It’s going to happen and this change in policy is going to advance that.”
Policy? . I know ONE change that is going to happen pretty soon and it’s not exactly a change in policy…
Raul Castro is older than my dad’s Edsel and Fidel needs a crib sheet to read the top line on an eye chart.
Right you are, Mr. President. The potential is unbelievable.
Heard one of the dumbest statements ever on Bill Bennett’s radio show this morning. (and that ain’t easy)
He had on Rep. Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen: Congresswoman for Florida’s 27th District
She was, of course, complaining about Obama and how he “gave away everything” re: Cuba.
I’m paraphrasing here, but then she said:
“We’re going to make peace with the entire world, and what do we get out of it? Nothing!”
The Castro Bros. do have a successor lined up … but he’s not exactly setting the world on fire.
Nice to see TPM following up with some more on Obama and Cuba. But alas, it seems mainly to be trying to make Obama’s amazing Cuban policy shift just another way to make stars out of Rand Paul and Marco Rubio.
I could not care less about the GOP and how it is floundering and dumbfounded by Obama.