Terrorists for Bush!

Cuba scholars Julia E. Sweig and Peter Kornbluh find the actions of the Bush administration -- in full megapander mode to the most strident of the anti-Castro crowd -- to be morally indefensible.

In June, the White House seemed to have maxed out on pandering to hard-line Cuban exiles when it virtually eliminated family visits and remittances to Cuba as part of a new initiative to undermine Castro's rule. But that policy has upset anti-Castro moderates in both parties because it criminalizes efforts to build family ties across the Straits of Florida, something a family-values president should support. In response, Bush's decision to accept the repatriation of the Cuban exile terrorists seems calculated to shore up support in the Cuban American community.

"I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world," Bush recently said in an interview.

But the decision to allow members of the Posada gang into this country, and the televised spectacle of Miamians applauding their return, sends a different and dangerous message: In a swing state, some terrorists are not only acceptable but welcome.

So what if one of them blew up a passenger jet, another fired a missile at a UN building, and another tried to assassinate a diplomat? One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, I've heard. It's just that I thought such moral relativism was unacceptable post-9-11.

Helpfully, the Shrillblog changes the names for security purposes and for moral clarity.