Obama defends self, not America in Trinidad, Tobago.

[gsvol]

At the Bubba Clinton created 'Summit of the Americas' following Nicaraguan Communist leader Daniel Ortega's wild, exaggerated, and mostly baseless harangue against the United States (referring to our "terrorist actions" in Latin America), that lasted fifty minutes, President Obama mildly criticized Ortega and then used the same excuse he used while downplaying his relationship with Bill Ayers in trying to distance himself from the actions of his own country -- he was just a little baby when it happened:

Actually, the president misspoke on the sequence of events in Cuba. The invasion of CIA-trained rebels at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba occurred in April 1961. Obama was born August 4, 1961. (If one is to believe his bogus certificate of live birth.)

Can you say 'grovel?'

Obama took notes as Ortega ranted.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ignored two questions about Ortega's speech, instead offering lengthy praise of a cultural performance of dance and song opening the summit.

"I thought the cultural performance was fascinating," Clinton said. Asked again about the Ortega speech, Clinton said: "To have those first class Caribbean entertainers on all on one stage and to see how much was done in such a small amount of space, I was overwhelmed."

A senior administration official declined to criticize Ortega, saying the president wanted to focus on the future.

Ortega's speech, indulgent even by regional standards, also mocked the very summit he was attending and helping to open.

"This summit and I simply refuse to call it summit of the Americas. Yes, we are gathered here, we have a large majority of presidents, heads of state of Latin America and the Caribbean," Ortega said, lamenting the lack of Cuban participation in the summit due to it exclusion since 1962 from the Organization of American States. "They're absent from this meeting. One is Cuba, whose crime has been that of fighting for independence, fighting for sovereignty of the peoples. I don't feel comfortable attending this summit. I cannot feel comfortable by being here. I feel ashamed of the fact that I'm participating at this summit with the absence of Cuba."

Chavez says socialist revolution can counter U.S. free-market policies in South America and he has become a standard-bearer for anti-U.S. sentiment in the region.

I think we can safely say Obama agrees wholeheartedly.

An estimated $1.1 billion in remittances were sent to Cubans from their brethren abroad last year, or nearly two percent of the nation’s GDP.

The Cuban government takes a 20% cut out of any remittances, a move which provides Havana with an easy way to make money. So now the Communist regime will make more money.

Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, along with his brother Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, have come out strongly against Obama’s decision. They know, perhaps better than anyone in the American government, what the remittances mean for Cuba’s dictatorship. Their great-uncle is none other than Fidel himself. In a joint-statement, they said:

Unilateral concessions to the dictatorship embolden it to further isolate, imprison and brutalize pro-democracy activists, to continue to dictate which Cubans and Cuban-Americans are able to enter the island, and this unilateral concession provides the dictatorship with critical financial support.

BTW, the Obama/Gaithner (probably illegal, at least without traditional congressional approval) of the remittance of $140 billion (the children and grandchildren of American taxpayers will be forced to repay) to the IMF will do more to prop up these socialist tyrannies around the world rather than feed the poor, that you can bet on.