2 Think Good

Lefties in the Obama Administration [redundant?] are no doubt constrained by reelection efforts, so at this stage they are reduced to using visas as a way expressing their solidarity with all things on the left.

The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady points out the hypocrisy of issuing a visa to Mariela Castro, but not to members of the Colombian military, Honduran interim government officials or obtaining the release of Alan Gross. An excerpt:

The dictator’s daughter, who is a vociferous proponent of the Cuban status quo, was ostensibly in the U.S. to discuss matters pertaining to her field of expertise, which has something to do with advocating for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. As the Cuban-born writer Carlos Alberto Montaner put it in a syndicated column last week, “Mariela is tolerant of sexual preferences and intolerant of all the rest.” He added: “For her, freedom and emotional coherence are something very specifically situated south of the navel.”
…
Ms. Castro’s affinity for the American president aside, it is passing strange that the administration even issued her a visa. It claims it is doing all it can to free the ailing 63-year-old Mr. Gross, and Ms. Castro’s desire for entry presented an opportunity to make that point to the regime. But apparently the importance of pleasing the Obama base in San Francisco, where she was invited first to talk about homosexual rights, was an even higher priority than the “high-priority” Mr. Gross.

The State Department defended the visa decision on free-speech grounds. But that’s hard to square with its history of using visas as a policy tool. There are many examples of elected Latin American officials and military brass being refused travel to the U.S. for reasons that override their rights to express themselves. Two prominent examples come to mind. First, numerous members of the Colombian military—which is under civilian command—and in some cases members of their families, have had their U.S. visas pulled by the State Department merely because the soldiers were accused by left-wing nongovernmental organizations of human-rights violations. Even when acquitted, most never had those visas restored.

Then there was the visa-yanking by the Obama administration when it decided in 2009 that the Honduran Supreme Court was undemocratic because it had ruled that President Manuel Zelaya’s removal from power was constitutional. Team Obama also pulled the visas of members of the interim government, even though it took power in strict adherence to the constitution and with the backing of the major political parties, the Catholic Church and the country’s human-rights ombudsman. Those visas were not returned even when the interim government presided over a free and fair election and left power on schedule.

Just a few more months of anti-Americanism being the zeitgeist in the White House. Soon we will be rid of the whole rotten bunch. The O’Grady column is copied in full at end of post.
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