6.01.00
Elián and the Embargo

5.31.00
A Successful Launch

5.30.00
Testing Time

5.26.00
How Safe Are You?

5.25.00
Separated at Birth

5.24.00
Mergerphobia

5.23.00
Dealing with Daschle

5.22.00
Unequal Comment

5.19.00
Learning English

5.18.00
Helen Thomas, Liberal

5.16.00
Dakota Man

5.15.00
Quite Contrary

6/01/00 6:30 p.m.
Elián and the Embargo
Now’s not the time to end it.

By NR's Ramesh Ponnuru & John J. Miller

here are good arguments for ending the embargo against Cuba, an action advocated by our esteemed boss, William F. Buckley Jr. But now’s not the time to do it.

A bipartisan coalition in Congress — including Republican senators John Ashcroft and Slade Gorton, both running for re-election — wants to weaken the embargo by letting food and medicine through. Tom DeLay has gotten some criticism for standing in the way.

We’re willing to entertain the idea that the embargo should be lifted altogether. (Our ideal policy would be “lift and strike”-get rid of the embargo and send in the Marines-but that is a non-starter politically.) But it should not be done so soon after the Elian Gonzalez affair. Laws have expressive as well as formal content. With so many prominent voices cheering the decline of the Cuban-American lobby, ending the embargo would be a further kick in the teeth for the residents of Little Havana. A weakening of the embargo is not worth supporting if it is taken to mean a weakening of American opposition to the Castro regime.

If the folks who want to end the embargo wanted to make sure it would not be taken that way, it wouldn’t have been impossible: They could have spoken up against the administration’s handling of the Gonzalez case the way Tom DeLay did.

Good Question
Mickey Kaus posted this short item on his website over a month ago, but we just ran across it this week and thought it was worth quoting: “Guess what's a totally legitimate issue in the 2000 election that never gets talked about? Welfare reform. The 1996 welfare reform law expires in 2002, meaning it will be reauthorized — and mended, perhaps significantly — by the next Congress. The Left knows this, and is already gearing up. . . . So where's the Right? . . . Hey, Hastert! You don’t have to talk about unpopular tax cuts or education. You don’t have to break new ground. You can trot out ol' reliable! Do we really want Charles Rangel (chairman of Ways & Means if the Dems retake the House) rewriting the welfare law?”

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