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Cuba Talks Ruled Out By McCain

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The Associated Press

Published: May 21, 2008

MIAMI - Republican John McCain, speaking to a raucous crowd on Cuba's independence day, hammered Democrat Barack Obama for saying he would meet with President Raul Castro and called Obama a "tool of organized labor" for opposing a Latin American trade deal.

For a second day, McCain criticized Obama for saying, in a debate last year, that as president he would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Iran and Venezuela without preconditions.

McCain insisted such a meeting could endanger national security, sounding a theme that is likely to persist until November's election.

The Arizona senator recalled the ridicule President Carter faced in 1979 when he kissed Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev during the signing of an arms treaty.

"Carter went over and kissed Brezhnev, remember?" McCain said Tuesday in Miami. "So it's dangerous; it's dangerous to American national security if you sit down and give respect and prestige to leaders of countries that are bent on your destruction or the destruction of other countries. I won't do it, my friends."

Obama protested that McCain was distorting his position: "What I've said is that we would set a series of meetings with low-level diplomats, set up some preparation, but that over time, I would be willing to meet and talk very directly about what we expect from the Cuban regime."

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