Castro Steps Down

In a weird way, this story would have been even bigger had it happened ten years ago, much less twenty years ago.

Castro evokes LBJ:

I will not aspire to neither will I accept — I repeat I will not aspire to neither will I accept — the position of President of the Council of State and Commander in chief,

Anointed successor / bro Raul is said to have close ties to Russian's foreign intelligence service. He and Fidel also seem to disagree.

This means that B. Obama can now plausibly claim to have an excuse not to meet with Fidel Castro when he becomes president (and the requisite diplomatic throat phlegm has cleared).

Comments

it seems somewhat anticlimactic that this is how Castro ends his reign. Regardless of his past, it is amazing to me that he has been in charge since 1959! My mother was born in 1959. But now he is gone.....

Posted by Jen | February 19, 2008 6:41 AM

For how long will Cuba continue to exist as we know it, even with Raul in command, now that the supreme dick(tator) has Castro-ted himself?

Posted by Nathan Origer | February 19, 2008 6:48 AM

Welcome back, Marc! With you in and Castro out, it's a good day.

Posted by DK | February 19, 2008 7:04 AM

Sometimes you root a little for the bad guy to get away with one last bank heist, one last undetected blowjob from an intern or Eleanor Mondale...

In that way, and because the Cuban exiles have been a bit obnoxious on their insistance they must have special immigrant privileges no other group gets thus badly skewing our immigration policy and being saddled with an asinine total trade embargo - I was rooting for Fidel. To last to 50 years in office, step down in the midst of a national celebration, having outlasted yet another President in office, with a final macho flip of the bird to the exiles that fled rather than fight him.

Posted by chris ford | February 19, 2008 7:41 AM

Seems fitting that this dictator and killer is dying of intestinal cancer -- a particularly nasty and painful type of cancer. May his pain and suffering continue to the very end.

Posted by ProfNickD | February 19, 2008 8:09 AM

How come Barak Obama's supporters in Houston fly a Cuban flag with a picture of Communist Che Guevara imposed on it? See http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=28915&only&rss.

Viva Fidel! His legacy will be to have brought literacy and health care to his people; the legacy of the gusanos in Miami will be a cruel embargo that has been squeezing Cubans for decades and a skewered American foreign policy conducted by craven presidents who have pandered to the exiles' resentments. ProfNickD may wish a painful death on Fidel, what does he wish on the American leaders who have brought death to hundreds of thousands from Vietnam to Cuba to Iraq?

Posted by drxlc | February 19, 2008 12:56 PM

Yes, one can talk about "achievements in literacy," health care, organizations for the Youth, summer camps for youth, "clean" cities, a crackdown on street crime, a strong social net, a sense of togetherness, and the creation of a nationalistic spirit, and the autobahns, but no one would wish a return of Hitler. Let's hope that Cubans will soon have access to the internet, cell phones, the right to read publications from the "forbidden" list, the right to travel within Cuba, and the right to travel outside of Cuba. Let's hope that it will not take a 1989 Romanian style uprising of the masses to bring this about. All Power to the Cuban People!

Posted by James | February 19, 2008 1:13 PM

Yes, one can talk about "achievements in literacy," health care, organizations for the Youth, summer camps for youth, "clean" cities, a crackdown on street crime, a strong social net, a sense of togetherness, and the creation of a nationalistic spirit, and the autobahns, but no one would wish a return of Hitler. Let's hope that Cubans will soon have access to the internet, cell phones, the right to read publications from the "forbidden" list, the right to travel within Cuba, and the right to travel outside of Cuba. Let's hope that it will not take a 1989 Romanian style uprising of the masses to bring this about. All Power to the Cuban People!

Posted by James | February 19, 2008 1:13 PM

What does all this mean, if anything? I mean if I go to sleep tonight, and wake up tomorrow with Castro DEAD, would the world be a brighter place?
There is a LOT of problems in the world, and I wonder if the resignation of some ten cents dictator will make a difference. Having written that, I am sure a LOT of people would rejoice, if he was in the dirt, rotting away.

Posted by Charles Nickalopoulos | February 19, 2008 1:57 PM