An Open Letter to a Latino Helen Thomas

Dear Fidel,

I realize you have a lot of spare time on your hands, what with your brother taking over and there being no futher call for you to give eight hour speeches (with no teleprompter, yet--now, that's impressive!). But, really, couldn't you just kick back, enjoy the sun, sand and senoritas, maybe down a few pina coladas, and, oh yeah, lay off the Jews?

Sure, back in the day you and your amigo Lucky Pierre were muy simpatico re "the Palestinians". And, at one time, you even allowed that "revolutionary" Yasser Arafat to train his, er, "revolutionaries" on your soil. (Utopians of a feather flock together, eh?) But even you must concede that, while Arafat could swan around in anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist garb (the one the Jew-loathing Soviets tarted him up in), it's a bit of a stretch, to say the least, for Hamas, a bunch of out-and-out jihadis, to try to wear it. And that Jooos-are-the-"new"-Nazis palaver--sorry, but the Soviets did that first (and best), too. (See Chapter 14, "The Anti-Zionist Masquerade," in A Lethal Obsession by Robert Wistrich.) Why, it's almost as if you're pining for those "good old days" of the Cold War--Brezhnev (he of the Colin Farell eyebrows but, looks-wise, nothing else Farrellian) at the helm; Eastern Europe and all those random "Stans" squared away in the Warsaw Pact camp; Mutually Assured Destruction keeping nuclear annihilation at bay; Fidel in Havana and all's right (or, erm, "left") with the world.

Good times, my friend, good times. Alas, tempus fugit, and even a once vigorous macho man admired by millions can find himself sadly diminished--a shell of his former self. And since that sort of "type A" personality is likely to have a hard time relinquishing control--and since no invitation to join the Elders seems to be forthcoming--one certainly has a modicum of sympathy for your plight. Still, I always say it's better to cede the spotlight before you end up sounding like a victim of incipient senility (viz Helen Thomas) rather than after, so that people will remember how you were in your prime.

Vaya con dios, muchacho. And remember--if you hurry, you can still make the early-bird special at the Havana all-U-can-eat surf 'n' turf buffet.