AND NOW CUBA - AT 9:04 A.M. ET:  From The New York Times:

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.

COMMENT:  This will undoubtedly cheer the thousands of political prisoners in Castro's prisons, just as Obama's groveling to the Muslim world undoubtedly thrills Muslim human-rights campaigners.  Not. 

We'll withhold judgment for a time.  The president also correctly warned that Cuba's repressive policies are on the table, and he warned that routine Latin American attempts to blame the United States for all problems south of our border must go.

We did engage both the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War, so this is really nothing new.  The issue is what we will give, and demand in return.  A negotiation is just talk unless defined precisely.  If human freedom suddenly disappears from the agenda, then we're in trouble.  And that is my fear.  The so-called "realist" school is back in town, with its moral-equivalency chorus.  Mr. Obama must resist them.

April 18, 2009