After a week of Fox News fabulists going bonkers over President Obama’s use of the word “Forward” and declaring that he was a socialist because of it (never mind that Fox also used it their promos), we now have Fox Nation publishing a piece that aligns Obama with Fidel Castro:
Not surprisingly, there is very little in that headline that is true. Obama did not “rip” the United States, he did not “compliment” Cuba, and there is no evidence that he ever said anything remotely similar to that “quote” to any visitor. The one thing that the Fox Nationalists got right is that Castro said something.
What happened is that Fox Nation’s editors found an article by Kyle Olson of the Education Action Group. EAG is a far-right, Koch-funded cell of anti-unionists in Michigan. Olson pulled a quote from a column by Castro that was published on Counterpunch.org. In that article Castro bragged about Cuba’s beneficial relationship with allies like Venezuela, and added…
“President Obama knows this only too well and has talked about it with some of his visitors. He candidly told one of them: ‘The problem is that the United States sends soldiers while Cuba, however, sends doctors.’“
Castro doesn’t say when, where, or to whom, Obama allegedly said this. There is no record of any visitor that was ever told any such thing, or how Castro would have heard about it. Did some mysterious visitor rush back to his hotel, get Cuba on the line and beam “Hey Fidel, guess what Barack just told me?” However, it is certainly a useful and self-serving tale for Castro to weave.
But let’s set aside all of those points, that suggest that this whole thing is a hoax, and just examine the substance of the quote. There have been plenty of discussions about foreign policy strategies that weigh the benefits of military aid and humanitarian aid. The question of whether the U.S. should seek to strengthen it’s relations with other countries by sending doctors or soldiers is one that is reasonable and proper. It is neither a rip nor a compliment. It is simply good diplomacy to analyze and arrive at an effective balance.
Clearly the editors at Fox Nation have bought into the story as they posted Castro’s quote as if it were fact. It’s ironic, and more than a little unpatriotic, that they put more faith in what Castro says than their own president. If one didn’t know better it would appear that the Fox Nationalists are cozying up to the communist dictator who they obviously regard as a truthful source. Perhaps Rep. Allen West, who is so anxious about the possibility of communists in congress, should look into whether Fox is secretly harboring traitors in their newsroom.
It is also interesting to note the graphic that the Fox Nationalists chose to accompany their article. I’m sure they innocently selected a photo of Obama applauding in front of a banner that says “CUBA.” Certainly they would have had no intention of conveying any message that the President supported the communist state. And it’s surely not relevant that another angle of the same event reveals that Obama was speaking at a conference of the Cuban American National Foundation, an anti-Castro group based in Miami:
