August 07, 2006

Shouldn't someone be reading these sorts of things BEFORE they're published?

NYT:

MEXICO CITY, Aug. 7 — High-ranking Cuban officials worked hard today to send the message that Cuba was stable after the handover of power from Fidel Castro to his younger brother last week.

Fair enough. Oh wait, no. What?

One member of the island’s council of state, or politburo, Roberto Fernández Retamer, told reporters at a news conference that the country had set in motion a peaceful political succession. It was not clear whether he meant the transfer of power to Raúl Castro would turn out to be permanent, but the statement was clearly meant to suggest the Castro regime was not about to crumble.

Now I'm confused. Is the country stable, or is there a change in leadership? The two seem mutually exclusive, though I suppose you can have a change in leadership that's minimally disruptive.

I'll think I'll eat some leftover Indian food and take a nap.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The United States has a change in leadership every four or eight years, but those changes rarely have any impact at all on the stability of our government. Ok sure, we're a democracy, and we have lots of institutions that retain perfect continuity even when the guy at the top changes, but I see no reason why a change of leadership in Cuba is necessarily mutually exclusive with continued stability.