Parsing Statements on Cuba in Obama's "State of the Union" Speech

In Cuba, we are ending a policy [not a policy but codified law, which the president intends to subvert and nullify by presidential fiat] – (applause) -- that was long past its expiration date [there was never an expiration date on the rupture of diplomatic relations or on the trade embargo primarily because there was never an expiration date on the regime; clearly, letting the policy expire will not remove the regime; the expiration of the regime, however, would long ago have removed the policy]. When what you’re doing doesn’t work for 50 years, it’s time to try something new [of course, the embargo has accomplished exactly what it was intended to do: not to overthrow the regime, but to deny it the financial resources that would allow it to fund its internal repression and external excursions on America's dime.] (Applause.) And our shift in Cuba policy [without consulting Congress and in contravention of U.S. law] has the potential to end a legacy of mistrust in our hemisphere [the mistrust was fully justified: to mistrust a liar certainly makes more sense than to trust him] and removes the phony excuse [if  the excuse is already phony, why does it have to be removed?] for restrictions in Cuba*** ["restrictions?" Is that all that the Castro regime has imposed on Cubans in 56 years of totalitarian rule? And what "restrictions" precisely did Obama succeed in easing or eliminating when he surrendered unconditionally to Raúl Castro? The only restrictions that Obama eliminated were those that prevented the U.S. government and its citizens from underwriting the rule of Castro and his henchmen], stands up for democratic values [betrays democratic values by preferring a stable Cuba (courtesy of Castro) to internal strife that might result in an unstable (i.e. free) Cuba]  and extends the hand of friendship to the Cuban people [not to the Cuban people, whose hands are tied, but to their henchmen, who get to decide what's "best" for the hapless Cuban people without any input from them, just as Obama himself has now done]. And this year, Congress should begin the work of ending the embargo [fat chance on that, even with the near-unanimous support of the Democrats and of a few Republican appeasers]. (Applause.)

As -- as his Holiness, Pope Francis, [who certainly deserves a hat tip from Obama for his shameless shilling for the Castro regime] has said, diplomacy is the work of small steps [actually, only one little step is necessary for unprincipled and opportunistic diplomacy, such as practiced by Obama, to "work": when one side is willing to give the other side everything it wants and asks nothing in return except to have its capitulation accepted]. These small steps have added up to new hope for the future in Cuba [if one understands "the future in Cuba" to be the Castro dynasty]. And after years in prison [because Obama refused to demand his release or take punitive steps against the regime], we are overjoyed that Alan Gross is back where he belongs [having been exchanged for three of the Five Cuban Spies (the other two had already been returned to Cuba)]. (Applause.) Welcome home, Alan [and you're getting $3.2 million from your fellow Americans to compensate you for your pain and suffering]. We’re glad you’re here [yes, but you should never have been there, in a Castro jail, a fact which most of Obama's listeners wouldn't know and should have been pointed out to them. Maybe they just assumed, from the context of Obama's speech, that Gross was the guy responsible for negotiating this new policy and bringing democracy to  Cuba].

*** "Our shift in Cuba policy [...] removes the phony excuse for restrictions in Cuba." What Obama actually means but does not dare to say for fear of offending his new Cuban friend is: "Our shift in Cuba policy [...] removes" the phony excuse of the embargo as the cause of Communist Cuba's economic failures. But, again, if the excuse is phony, why bother to disprove it? And if Cuba's economy does improve because of renewed U.S.-Cuban ties, then does that mean that the "phony excuse" wasn't phony, after all? Paradoxically, if the wreck of the Cuban economy was due to the embargo rather than to the regime's Marxist economic model, then Obama would be wrong to claim that this was a failed policy. On the contrary, the embargo would have been shown to be the most successful economic sanctions in U.S. history.