BEYOND BLATHER

by John McCaslin

More now on the Arkansas Farm Bureau's just-concluded fact-finding mission to Cuba, in which Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas Democrat, tagged along to become the first female senator to huddle with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro on his home turf.

We wrote yesterday that Mrs. Lincoln emerged from the meeting saying she is now "more confident than ever" of the need to lift the U.S. trade embargo with its communist neighbor.

Now, Jose Cardenas, Washington spokesman for the Cuban American National Foundation, is charging that "Blanche Lincoln and all of her fellow-traveling colleagues to Cuba are guilty of perpetrating a fraud on their constituencies when they claim Castro's 'socialist paradise' can be a viable market for American farm products.

"The fact is they can't produce one sober economist with knowledge of Cuba to explain how it is that a bankrupt Castro will be able to pay for one grain of rice from Arkansas producers."

"Ordinarily," he tells Inside the Beltway, "we [Cuban-Americans] would just dismiss her claims as just so much ideological blather, but the problem is they are setting up the American taxpayer to be left holding the bag for their illusory sales projections."

"Bet on it: When Fidel refuses to pony up the cash for food sales to Cuba, guess who will be tapped to make Blanche and her friends happy? You, me, and all other American taxpayers."

END

The Washington Times
June 13, 2000

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