Please check out this video clip of Marco Rubio addressing the press at a luncheon attended by Sen Obama in May of 2008. The video was posted on the Babalu blog. Rubio is the Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.

Rubio explains with great conviction why Cuba’s future freedoms should not be negotiated with the Castro dictatorship. He notes that their ability to maintain power should not be confused with the legitimacy which is earned by those who win free elections. They never have and therefore should not be treated as such. Very well said by Rubio and I wholeheartedly agree.

Speaking of even more local politics, check out the review of the Miami Herald’s new columnist, Myriam Marquez on the 26th Parallel blog. The post has numerous links to Marquez’s earlier columns in Orlando and quotes her opening column:

When your parents leave behind everything they hold dear, including their own parents, to save their children, you’re sure to grow up with lots of chutzpah. When you’re taught to ”duck and cover” in a Miami classroom during the Cold War, you learn to value freedom. When you spot a number tattooed on a tailor’s wrist at a fabric shop near Cielito Lindo, the old downtown Miami courthouse, you never forget the Holocaust survivor, for you have witnessed God’s perseverance over evil.

And the first time you have to translate for your mother that the white man with a Southern drawl is telling us to move up because we’re sitting in the ”colored” section of the bus, you learn to question authority.

And embrace empathy. When Haitians and Venezuelans flee their own despots, how can you not empathize?

Or feel grateful for this nation’s promise?

Had the U.S. government turned us away, I would have been forced to wear a red kerchief, shouting slogans about wanting to be like el Che. (A victory for this wife and mother of two sons: The boys know not to bring home a Che Guevara T-shirt from college.)

Now I have the privilege of sharing my perspective in this column three times a week, to try to explain what too often in South Florida seems inexplicable. I don’t take this assignment lightly.