Time Magazine's Cuba Spinster

BY: THE HILL


There's nothing worse than a journalist trying to pass off an opinion as fact.

Time's Miami and Latin America bureau chief, Tim Padgett, has long-held biases against U.S. policy toward Cuba and the political leadership of the Cuban-American community.

So it's no surprise that in Time's (appropriately-named) blog, Global "Spin," he writes a multi-layered hit piece on U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Some will argue that Padgett is expressing his opinion in a blog -- not a news story.

However, that's part of the problem -- when journalists pretend to be activist bloggers (and vice-versa).

But that's a bigger philosophical debate.

Here's the immediate issue.

In his critique of Senator Rubio, Padgett makes the following completely unsubstantiated accusation:

Rubio feels that because (USINT Chief Jonathan) Farrar showed himself too soft on the Castros while recently serving as the U.S.'s top diplomat in Havana, he would therefore be too soft on Nicaragua's authoritarian leftist President, Daniel Ortega. (Rubio's assertion that Farrar didn't adequately engage Cuban dissidents, however, is fairly disingenuous given how long Cuban-American leaders once dismissed those dissidents as sell-outs because they didn't advocate violent government overthrow.)

We'd like to challenge Padgett to substantiate his statement about Cuban-American leaders dismissing dissidents that didn't advocate violent government overthrow as "sell-outs."

This biased accusation couldn't be farther from the truth.

Cuban-American leaders have always highlighted and heralded the courageous non-violence and civil-disobedience campaign of Cuba's pro-democracy movement.

Stop the sloppy journalism or blatant untruths.