Paul Ryan is campaigning down in Miami where he has just discovered a powerful dislike for the Cuban government. You can find Congressman Ryan wherever the political winds blow. And you can bet that he'll be the one blowing hardest. When government's spending, he's the biggest spender; when government's budget-minded, he's got the craziest budget. Case in point: Paul Ryan's recent dislike for Cuba. According to The New York Times, he was all for expanding relations with Castro when all he had to do was represent the Cuban community in Janesville, Wisconsin:
But the visit was also intended to do some fence-mending of his own: as a young congressman from a largely rural Wisconsin district, Mr. Ryan, now Mitt Romney's 42-year-old vice-presidential running mate, supported ending the trade embargo with Cuba, an unpopular sentiment among many Republicans and Cuban exiles in this part of Florida, one of the most crucial swing states in the general election.
"If we think engagement works well with China, well, it ought to work well with Cuba," Mr. Ryan had said a decade ago in an interview with The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "The embargo doesn't work. It is a failed policy," he said, adding that while many Cuban-Americans were passionate in their support of the embargo," I just don't agree with them and never have."
(emphasis added). Do you call his current position, then, a pandering or is it a lie? The New York Times just reported the facts in this instance and allowed the readers to decide. Here, they made it easy for us, compare what Ryan says,
" ... [T]his president's policy of appeasement is not working."
Mr. Ryan argues that the Obama administration has been too willing to engage with Cuba and has made it too easy to travel back and forth and send money to Havana from the United States. He vowed that a Romney-Ryan administration would be "tough on Castro" ....
With the actual Obama Administration policy:
An Obama campaign official took strong issue with Mr. Ryan's characterization of the administration's Cuba policy, saying that Mr. Obama "has repeatedly renewed the trade embargo with Cuba, pressured the Castro regime to give its people more of a say in their own future, and supported democracy movements on the island."
The official also said that the administration had "put in place common-sense, family-based reforms that allow Cuban-Americans to visit their family members still living in Cuba."
So, not only did Ryan want to end the Cuban embargo for years -- but changed his mind as soon as he needed votes in Florida -- but he mixed up the word "appeasement" with the word "embargo," probably an honest mistake, and he also has a new-found problem with Americans sending their money offshore to foreign islands!
Join me below the fold for another Paul Ryan Island Adventure.
With Gilligan!
The Skipper too.
The Millionaire ...
... and his Wife!
The movie star!
And the rest ...
Are here on LieAgain Isle!
UPDATE: Obama Nightly News is up by nomandates, and it deserves your recs. If you have a free rec to spare, please donate it over here. It is a powerful diary about fighting Romney's lying strawman argument about "Change" while seeking a Democratic Tsunami for the election.