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Someone really should have thought twice before letting Sean Hannity embarrass himself with the failed stunt he tried in his interview with Michael Moore, the second half of which aired last night on Fox.

Hannity wanted to make a point about how health care in Cuba is so much worse than it is in the YooEssAy -- in contradistinction to Moore's own reportage -- so he offered what he called special video footage he had been provided of a "hospital" in Cuba.

What we then see is a rattletrap mess with old beds and rotting toilets, etc. But Moore notices what should be obvious: There are no patients, either.

Ah, but wait! We shortly see footage of patients in a hospital. But they're in an obviously different building (or at least wing), because this room is clean and the beds and equipment sanitary and well-tended. But we only get to see them for a few seconds before -- swoop! -- off we go back to the rat's nest.

Which is obviously an abandoned hospital or wing, which is certainly not unheard of, even in the YooEssAy.

Moore, of course, laughs at all of this with glee. Hannity quickly changes the subject, since his oh-so-convincing video evidence just makes him look as bad as he has recently in his Jennings Jihad.

You'd think Hannity & Co. would know better than to try to run such hamhandedly edited footage past an experienced filmmaker like Moore. This was so amateurish that they all should just be embarrassed.

But they're too arrogant and too stupid to be so.

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(C. Douglas Dillon - bringing the date to the prom)

With the recent news of Sec. of State Clinton's defense pact with Colombia, I was thinking about how our foreign policy has been something of a hit-and-miss situation with regards to Latin America in recent years.

Historically, Latin America has always seemed like the girlfriend you had under the bleachers but never took to the prom (h/t Susie!) - someone you needed in a pinch, but never took very seriously. We had the Good Neighbor Policy during World War 2 and the Alliance for Progress during the Cold War. Both overtures were made out of fear. Certainly fear the Axis would establish a beach head during World War 2 and definitely a fear of Cuba's close association with the Soviet Union during the Cold War would lead to a communist sweep of the Southern Hemisphere.

We have usually always pledged undying love and support but only in crisis - not on the day-to-day. Because of that, I don't think the average American really knows anything about the vast expanse of land just south of us - nothing about the people, the culture, the politics. We know all about the drugs, immigration and NAFTA - but nothing of the inner-workings of a continent so close to us. And that is ultimately our problem.

So, in an effort to put some historic perspective on what we do overseas - not only in Latin America but Africa and the rest of the world, I'm going to regularly include some of our Foreign Policy issues of the past so hopefully some light can be shed on what we need to do if we're planning on staying the super-power we so much like being. On top of that, ignorance of your culture and the world not only isn't cool - it's dangerous.

Here is a Press conference from August 22, 1961 featuring Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Treasury Secretary C. Douglas Dillon, giving an outline of the events at the Punta del Este Conference in Uruguay.

C.Douglas Dillon: “No matter how good their intentions, no matter how much national effort is brought to bear upon their enormous problems, the leaders of Latin America cannot translate their ambitious plans and dreams for their peoples into reality without financial and technical assistance from the United States. And on the long term basis, which is indispensable to sound programming. We must recognize the questions about the future of the Alliance for Progress are not our prerogative alone. They’re also being asked in Latin America about us, about our intentions, about our capacity to help make The Alliance for Progress a success. These questions were raised in open meeting at Punta del Este by the representative of the Castro regime. Who boasted that only their monolithic form of statism could produce progress."

And let's give credit to the Dems who put the "bi" in bipartisan on this issue! Yes, let's hear it for those Dems who live and die by the prevailing winds of public opinion - who would never dream of actually educating the voters instead of knuckling under to their uninformed emotions. You go, Weathervane Dems! Woo hoo!

The Obama administration has all but abandoned plans to allow Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been cleared for release to live in the United States, administration officials said yesterday, a decision that reflects bipartisan congressional opposition to admitting such prisoners but complicates efforts to persuade European allies to accept them.

Four Uighur detainees, Chinese Muslims who were incarcerated at the U.S. military prison in Cuba for more than seven years, arrived early yesterday in Bermuda, where they will become foreign guest workers. An administration official said the United States is engaged in negotiations with other countries, including Palau, an island nation in the western Pacific, to find places for the remaining 13 Uighurs held at Guantanamo.

The Uighurs, who were ordered released by a federal judge last year, never counted America as an enemy, according to the men's lawyers and human rights groups, giving the administration grounds to argue that they should live in the United States. Picked up in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2002, the Uighurs were later cleared of the "enemy combatant" label but remained in minimum-security confinement at Guantanamo.

Attempting to settle non-Uighur detainees in the United States would generate even greater congressional opposition, and the administration has decided not to pursue it broadly, an administration official said yesterday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. But he said there may yet be "a few" candidates for settlement in the United States among the dozens of Guantanamo detainees who have been cleared for release.

Congressional Democrats yesterday reached agreement on a war-funding bill that would allow detainees to be sent to the United States for trial. The draft bill included no provision for prolonged detention without trial, a step that President Obama has said will be necessary to incarcerate detainees who are too dangerous to release but who cannot be prosecuted.

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(Handed a rather overflowing plate in 1961)

With all the recent reflection on Presidential 100 days and crisis management, I was reminded just how much the Kennedy Administration had been handed in the area of Foreign policy and crisis management in their first 100 days.

Senator J. William Fulbright was Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, overseeing a host of hotspots, including the Congo, Berlin, Laos (in fact the whole Southeast Asia region) and Cuba. Ironically, five days before this Meet The Press was recorded, the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion took place - a bungled attempt at toppling the Castro regime on the part of the CIA causing a big black eye in our policy towards Latin America in general.

The deck was pretty stacked and there was no shortage of fires to put out. Fulbright was a big advocate of education and foreign assistance as a means of overcoming the increasing Communist influence in these regions. He was no advocate of armed conflict, particularly in SouthEast Asia, citing the French excursion and terrain as reasons to avoid it. His solution to funding the campaign of education and Foreign Aid was probably tainted by those two most lethal words in politics, "higher taxes".

This Meet The Press, from April 30, 1961 features Fulbright answering a battery of questions from Lawrence Spivak and Company.

Lively.

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Rep. Steve King on Washington Journal April 21, 2009. I think King has been "palling around" with Duncan Hunter who made the remarks about the prisoners at Gitmo having their orange-glazed chicken.

King: There have never been prisoners that have been treated as good as that. They're in air conditioning. They set the temperature. They get a choice of nine meals off of a menu per day. There was no waterboarding that took place in Gitmo nor in the Western hemisphere contrary to these reports that keep coming out. There are two hundred and forty of the worst of the worst down there and if they are released there will be innocent people killed. We know there is torture taking place on political prisoners in some of the countries in South America. That also includes Cuba and under Castro and that is an outrage. But what the Americans have done is treated these prisoners with the greatest deference any prisoners have ever been treated. And I think if you could see what's going on, the attacks on our guards every day down there. Every day there are guards attacked and the worst we can do to the worst of them is limit their outdoor exercise to two hours a day.

When the next caller asks him if he's in denial, he clarifies his statement with this:

King: I said it didn't happen in the Western hemisphere sir....It happened. It just didn't happen in the Western hemisphere. Three of them.

I'd like to know just where Rep. King is admitting the waterboarding took place.

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With the renewed interest in Cuba and the possibility of talks a potential reality, not to mention we're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution and the rise to power of Fidel Castro, I thought it would be interesting to present a Sunday Talk Show from 1964 featuring a rare interview with Che Guevara. ABC's Issues and Answers, in pretty much the same mold as Meet The Press and Face The Nation, this interview, conducted in Havana pulled no punches.

Guevara is heard through an interpreter and now that we have the Crooks and Liars Media player, you get to hear the whole thing, uncut, exactly as presented on March 24, 1964.

(Had he lived, he'd be 80 this year

It's great to see someone who believes in diplomatic engagement back in the White House, isn't it?

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — President Obama, seeking to thaw long-frozen relations with Cuba, told a gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders on Friday that “the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,” and that he was willing to have his administration engage the Castro government on a wide array of issues.

Mr. Obama’s remarks, during the opening ceremony at the Summit of the Americas, are the clearest signal in decades that the United States is willing to change direction in its dealings with Cuba. They capped a dizzying series of developments this week, including surprisingly warm words between Raúl Castro, Cuba’s leader, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Other leaders here said that in watching Mr. Obama extend his hand to Cuba, they felt they were witnessing a historic shift. And in another twist, Cuba’s strongest ally at the summit, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, no fan of the United States, was photographed at the meeting giving Mr. Obama a hearty handclasp and a broad smile.

Oh yes, and wingnuts are already frothing over that!

(...) Mr. Obama’s message was not entirely new; he has said in the past that he was willing to engage with Cuba. But making a public pledge before leaders of 33 other nations, many of whom he had not yet met, gave his words added heft.

Hard to imagine it's been fifty years since Castro assumed power in Cuba. Even harder to imagine travel restrictions have been relaxed after all this time.

Ever since the government of Fulgencio Batista fell and Fidel Castro took over, the subject of Cuba has been a contentious one. In 1959 the Cold War was in full bloom and the almost constant fear of countries coming under the influence of the Soviet Union was on most Americans minds, especially when the countries coming under the influence happened to be in our own hemisphere.

Shortly after Castro assumed power, it was speculated by a number of American news outlets that Cuba was warming to the Soviet Union and that Communism had a definite toehold at our doorstep. Cuba, after all was a mere 90 miles away and it would prove to be a flashpoint in many an east-west showdown in the years following.

In May of 1959 CBS Radio did a documentary called "Is Cuba Going Red", hosted by newsman Stuart Novins. It was contended that Cuba had been overtaken by communist elements and was in the grips of becoming a totalitarian state, so fresh from its independence from the Batista government.

The documentary drew a huge amount of criticism and it forced CBS to run a companion show in order to allow Cuban spokespeople to air their side of the story.

The end result was a discussion that turned into a minor yelling match between Novins and Senator Charles Porter from Oregon.

The first part is the portrayal of Cuba as it was in May of 1959, asking the question if the island had gone Communist. And the second part is a rebuttal argument by the Cuban Ambassador and various officials from the Cuban government.

Getting more and more isolated on the world stage....heckuva job, Bushie.

Reuters:

European Union states agreed on Thursday to scrap sanctions against Cuba but will insist the Communist island improves its human rights record, EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said.

The decision, taken despite U.S. calls for the world to remain tough on Havana, will be reviewed after one year, EU sources said.

"Cuban sanctions will be lifted," Ferrero-Waldner told reporters after foreign ministers of the 27-nation bloc clinched agreement at a summit dinner in Brussels.

"Of course there is clear language on human rights, on the detention of prisoners and there will have to be a review also," she said, referring to statement to be issued later. [..]

Unlike the 1962 U.S. embargo, the EU sanctions do not prevent trade and investment. Lifting the sanctions will put the EU at odds with Washington, which wants to maintain a hard line against Cuba.

"We certainly don't see any kind of fundamental break with the Castro dictatorship that would give us reason to believe that now would be the time to lift sanctions," U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said on Thursday.

"We would not be supportive of the EU or anyone else easing those restrictions at this time."

There was a time -- not that long ago -- that we were respected enough that the EU would have acceded to our position. Of course the whole notion of our embargo against Cuba is way past any kind of relevant threat they may have posed and to claim now that it's due to human rights violations would be the worst kind of double standards on our part.