Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

It seems as if Cuban dictator Fidel Castro has, in his dotage, become an anti-Castroite. "The Cuban model,” Castro said recently, “doesn't even work for us anymore,” a sentiment that easily could have gotten the speaker a 20 year sentence in one of Castro’s prisons had he been anyone other than Castro. George Will offers an analysis of the 84 year-old Marxist and one of his enablers, Jean Paul Sartre . Will ends his column by calling for an end to the boycott of Cuba: “Today, U.S. policy of isolating Cuba by means of economic embargoes and travel restrictions serves two Castro goals: It provides an alibi for Cuba's social conditions and it insulates Cuba from some of the political and cultural forces that brought down communism in Eastern Europe. The 11th president, Barack Obama, who was born more than two years after Castro seized power, might want to rethink this policy, now that even Castro is having second thoughts about fundamentals.” All very well and good, b...

Q: How’s Joe (Lieberman) doing? A: The patient is recovering. Q: From? A: The mugging. Q: Ha!!! A: He’s up in almost all the polls -- anywhere from 10% to 15%, depending upon which soothsayer you consult. But Lieberman has received a drubbing, mostly for two reasons: He was too friendly to President George Bush, universally reviled here in the “provision state;” and, in his political life, Lieberman has not been a take-no-prisoners Democrat, like John Kerry or Ted Kennedy, both unbending opponents of everything Republican. Unpopular wars have a way of bringing out the partisan in everyone. Partisanship is in these days; mutual co-operation – collegiality, as they call it in the U.S. Senate – is out. Q: Because we are in an election? A: No, I think the political templates have shifted. We are witnessing a change in the political culture, a hotting-up on both sides, comparable to global warming. Q: And the change has been prompted by the war? A: Only in part. Partisan difference rumble u...