President Obama shook hands with Raul Castro
at the Nelson Mandela memorial earlier in South Africa
and right-wing media is completely up in arms about this
and let's start with the CNN clip christiane amanpour sounding very
excited
that there are at least surprised excited I think maybe a bit of a of an
assumption but certainly surprised
and interested at President Obama shaking hands with the
Cuban leader Raul Castro take a look at this there's been a lot of questions
raised about security here
before I came on security officials
oz shaking White House
as christiane points out President Obama just drove past
Castro
you go
now from Brazil
what does that say as a his reconciliation
Fang
he's not just a lil finding people I
peacekeeping no idea UN secretary-general okay so immediately
the claim start from the right Lewis played this proves President Obama is a
communist this proves President Obama
supports the Castro regime in cuba
I have to tell you first of all I think it is absolutely worthless to listen to
these nonsense claims from the right about the handshake President Obama
went down the line and shook hands are kissed on the cheek
everybody that was in that in that group of people this is a sign of respect
towards Nelson Mandela and to the event
it's absurd to start making allegations
if your gonna do that then what are we to say about George W Bush holding hands
with the Saudi
broil family right immediate it's absurd to be going down this line
it is pretty stupid me the president's gonna be several what kinda messes just
sent to the world
if the president refused to shake one person's hand in this line
acting like a five year old I don't think that makes much sense no but let's
actually
explore a little further because this is a good opportunity to talk about the
embargo the trade embargo with Cuba I am NOT a defender
of cuba and I don't excuse
or or or explain away
any of the things that cuba has done
continues to do the detention uva above the American
I growth Alan Gross I believe his name is
I don't do any of that but what I do Louis is
compare and contrast the the political situation with cuba
did that with many other countries around the world and we cannot ignore
the reality
that I cuba is the only country
that has that is embargoed by the United States there are no other countries that
have this trade embargo with Cuba
four decades have this trade embargo dating back to the Cold War
have achieved very little in terms of changing the politics of cuba
forcing democracy and elections however the trade embargo
as worsened the living conditions above those in cuba
and it is hurting american businesses as well american businesses if allowed to
do business with cuba
would have more customers they would make more money
which by the way would increase the tax revenues for the federal government in
other words
it is fiscally conservative and pro-business
to do business with cuba it will help the cuban citizens
who certainly I don't think we want to hurt it will hurt
it will help Americans and American businesses and we're also spending
money on enforcing this embargo
with cuba there are many other countries where governments are not
freely-elected Louis and the US does business with them
my defending those countries and I defending cubano
and saying there's an incredible double standard there is
course a lot of those countries on well what's at stake
obviously lots of natural resources right I mean if you want a country to
grow
and you mature you have to open things up and I i think this needs to end
how is it how was it fiscally conservative to have this embargo
it just doesn't make any sense and and remember the cold war's over the cold
war has been over for a long time
Huber poses no threat to the US at all and the travel embargo and the trade
embargo at this point we just have to be more consistent that's really the the
point we have to you
you consider here