Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Thursday, Apr. 29, 2004

Editor’s note: This is Part 15 in a series revealing the Democratic front-runner’s track record on the important issues of the day.

Part 1: POWs and MIAs

Part 2: Defense

Part 3: Ties With Vietnam

Part 4: Attacking U.S. Intelligence

Part 5: Pro-abortion Militancy

Part 6: Gay Marriage Flip-Flop

Part 7: Taxes

Part 8: Undocumented Immigrants/Amnesty

Part 9: Missile Defense

Part 10: Bashing Reagan

Part 11: NAFTA and Free Trade

Part 12: Gun Control

Part 13: Israel

Part 14: Stem Cell Research

John Kerry’s position on Castro seems to exemplify the late U.S. Senate minority leader and senior senator from Illinois, Everett Dirksen who once said: “I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

There are some that suggest that White House contender Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., may have taken the lawmaker icon’s wit too much to heart, especially in dealing with the Castro and Cuba.

No matter Castro has been identified by both the left-leaning Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International as running one of the most repressive totalitarian regimes on the earth.

Kerry has at best equivocated about how America should respond, at worst, he voted against acts that sought to hem in Castro, such as the bipartisan Helms Burton bill that was supported by many Democrats, including Bill Clinton.

Over nearly 20 years in the Senate, Kerry has often criticized the 41-year-old package of economic sanctions on Fidel Castro’s government, but as Nov. 2004 looms, Kerry has predictably morphed – now emphasizing his support of the embargo and flexing a hard line against Castro.

Pundits don’t have to search far to find the impetus for the latest Kerry conversion.

The ever pragmatic Kerry is in a dither over the Cuban vote in all-important Florida. Al Gore only captured 18 percent of that key constituency in 2000. Bill Clinton managed over 30 percent in 1996.

Florida has 9.3 million registered voters, of whom 450,000 are Cuban-American. However, lurking out in voter-land there may be plenty more – voters born in the United States, who identify themselves as Cuban-American but who are listed on voting rolls only as ‘‘Hispanic.’’

Republican Bush reportedly captured 80 percent of the identified Cuban-American vote in 2000. However, recent polls indicate his support with the Cuban-American constituency lagging to about 60 percent.

Although Bush has working for him the perception Republican candidates and presidents are tougher on Castro than Democrats, pundits suggest that the President’s numerous trips (22) to the Sunshine State have raised expectations for action over rhetoric.

This has not been lost on the Bush camp.

Freezing Remittances

Recently Karl Rove and company ran up the flagpole in Florida’s Sun-Sentinel a proposal that would freeze so-called “remittances” flowing from the U.S. to Cuba for six months.

Such a move would be dramatic, considering that 75 percent of post-Mariel boatlift exiles regularly dispatch money to needy relatives on the island.

There are those that suggest that the remittances simply feed Dictator Fidel Castro. Of course, on the other side of the coin, a majority of exiles are just as convinced that their remittances are imperative to feeding the families they left behind.

In any event, on May 20, the 102nd anniversary of Cuba’s independence from Spain, Bush is scheduled to give a big anti-Castro speech in Miami. It will be interesting to see if he announces that the administration is suspending remittances and further restricting travel to Cuba.

Enter stage left on the volatile scene, candidate John Kerry --

The consensus of Kerry-watchers seems to be that the candidate is uneasy with the issue of Castro and Cuba – an unease born from more than just his standard flip-flop on the issues.

Whenever talking Kerry and Cuba, the infamous misspeaking episode emerges:

‘‘I’m pretty tough on Castro, because I think he’s running one of the last vestiges of a Stalinist secret police government in the world,’’ Kerry once told WPLG-ABC 10 reporter Michael Putney in an interview.

But then the candidate couldn’t help volunteering: “And I voted for the Helms-Burton legislation to be tough on companies that deal with him.’’

A well conceived response – had it been true. After all, in 1996 more than three in 10 Cuban-American voters in Florida backed President Clinton’s reelection after he signed the Cuba sanctions measure.

The embarrassing truth of the matter was that Kerry had voted for a conference version of the Helms-Burton bill that never passed. He voted against the final version that was enacted into law -- because it contained a provision allowing for lawsuits against Cuba to proceed in U.S. courts. In fact, the lawsuit provision (Title III, letting Americans sue people or companies who control properties confiscated from Americans in the early 1960s) has never been enforced by President Bush or his predecessor.

Political Liability

But whatever the later breaking back story on the vagaries of his vote, the damage was done to Kerry-on-the-record. Whereas Clinton made political hay by signing the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 (Helms-Burton Law), Kerry got stuck with a liability that still haunts him.

In March 1996 -- one week after Castro’s air force had shot down two civilian airplanes piloted by Cuban-Americans, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passing the Cuban Liberty and Economic Solidarity Act to strengthen economic sanctions against Cuba.

Kerry was one of only a handful of senators to vote against the bill and wears egg on his face to this day. To his distracters, the nonsensical helms-Burton vote was just more of the same soft-on-Castro Kerry. While Castro was executing or imprisoning dissidents Kerry was busy introducing or supporting bills to ease sanctions on Cuba.

Much more recently, during a late April 2004 Meet the Press session with Tim Russert, the commentator reminded Kerry of more of his troublesome record on the subject, reciting what the candidate had pronounced in 2000:

“We have a frozen, stalemated counterproductive policy. There’s just a complete and total contradiction between the way we deal with China, the way we deal with Russia, the way we have been dealing with Cuba. The only reason we don’t re-evaluate the policy is the politics of Florida.”

A flustered Kerry immediately disavowed the clear meaning of his 2000 pronouncement:

“All through the years I’ve been in the Senate, for 20 years, Tim, I have never suggested lifting the embargo, he told Russert. I don’t suggest you just lift the embargo. That’s not what I’m talking about. God forbid!”

But just days later, Kerry felt compelled to put spin on spin, telling the Miami Herald that, all God-forbidding aside, his position on the embargo was not so absolute – this time embracing some measure of ‘‘humanitarian’’ travel and other exchanges with the island in order to rein in “the isolation that in my judgment helps Castro.”

Indeed, Kerry has cosponsored legislation that would have, with limited exceptions, prohibited the president from regulating or prohibiting travel to Cuba.

Historically, Kerry doesn’t field Cuba questions well. When asked in a Herald interview last year about Janet Reno’s whisking little refugee Elián Gonzalez back to Cuba, Kerry said, “I didn’t agree with that.’’

Then came the inevitable Kerry ambivalence. Agreeing in principle that the boy should have been with his father, who elected to return to Cuba, he added, ‘‘I didn’t like the way they did it. I thought the process was butchered.’’

Kerry also fumbles when queried about immigration policies that allow Cuban migrants to remain if they reach land, but do not give give rights to Haitians and others who flee to Florida.

Dazed, he once responded that all migrants have a right to make their case for asylum. Then he admitted, "I haven’t resolved what to do. I’m going to talk to a lot of people in Florida.”

When the candidate does that promised talking to a lot of Florida people he may find out only that Democratic pollster Sergio Bendixen is right when he cynically advises, “Cuban Americans don’t believe anybody on Cuba policy, not Democrats or Republicans."

Castro Worse Than Ever

His gathering sum of years hasn’t slowed the old tyrant down. About a year ago over the course of a vicious three weeks, 75 democracy advocates, human-rights monitors, librarians, and journalists were arrested, show-tried on phony charges and banished to as much as 28 years in prison.

Candidate Kerry still wants to squirm into the breach here in the eleventh hour. And for sure President Bush has given him some room to maneuver. Although following through on his promise to crack down on Americans who travel to the communist island illegally, Bush has been slow to beef up Radio and TV Marti or provide those touted U.S. college scholarships to the children of Cuban political prisoners.

Meanwhile, Florida’s nearly half-million Cuban-American are poised to be pivotal in deciding who gets to cash in on the state’s big 27 electoral votes. Kerry will certainly be lambasted by the Republicans as a Johnny-come-lately to the honestly and truly anti-Castro encampment on America’s sandy southern peninsula.

Editor's note: