Christie's attack on Obama was purely political. Also, he didn't offer any practical alternative. So, nuts to Christie!

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COMMENT:  The more I hear from Christie, the more I get disgusted with his self-serving opinions. He claims he doesn't want to get into it when asked about the assassination of two Brooklyn police officers, yet he's got strong opinions about hinging US policy on the extradition of Chesimard.  The Florida Cuban vote connection is obvious. He is an empty suit and filled with political avarice. He would be the worst kind of person to represent the people of the United States. Hopefully the people wake up to his crass political machinations
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Christie's political pandering on Cuba: Editorial
By Star-Ledger Editorial Board, December 23, 2014

The premise of Gov. Chris Christie's latest attack on President Obama is inarguable: Cuba should send Joanne Chesimard, a convicted cop killer, back to face justice in the United States.

This was a truly grotesque case, a point-blank execution of a 34-year-old New Jersey State trooper, killed with his own weapon while incapacitated during a traffic stop along the New Jersey Turnpike in the early 1970s.

Chesimard, who was convicted of felony murder but granted asylum by Fidel Castro after she escaped from state prison in 1979, still walks free. This an affront to the victim's widow, the State Police, and the people of New Jersey.

But Chesimard is already on the FBI’s most wanted list, and President Obama surely agrees that she is a convicted murderer, not a political refugee. So on what grounds did Christie go on NJTV this week to assert that Obama hasn't been pushing for her extradition?

“(The) president was wrong in not asking for it,” the governor said, without explaining how on earth he knows that Obama didn’t ask for Chesimard's return from Cuba. Christie's press office presented no evidence today to back up that claim, either.

And when Christie wrote his letter to Obama, bloviating about how wrong the President was to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba when Chesimard is still on the lam, he offered no practical alternative.

Christie’s logic was purely political. Demanding Chesimard's return as a condition of restored diplomatic relations scores points with law enforcement and an older generation of Cuban-Americans, who display their opposition to Castro like a badge of honor. It could help Christie in Florida if he does run for president.

But ask yourself: What has our isolation of Cuba over the past half-century accomplished, besides leaving millions of its people in economic duress?

Our severe sanctions have utterly failed to weaken the grip of the Castro brothers. And what sense does it make to freeze relations with Cuba, when its human rights violations pale in comparison to other murderous dictatorships that we actively support?

Christie didn't say anything about halting direct military aid to Egypt, where political protestors are routinely jailed, tortured, executed, or massacred with impunity during peaceful demonstrations. He didn't say anything about cutting off trade with Communist China, where peaceful activists are tortured, detained in psychiatric facilities and placed under house arrest.

Why is Cuba presented as the globe’s true demon?

Polls show Americans overwhelmingly want a new approach to our relations with Cuba. So yes, Obama should continue to push for Chesimard’s extradition. But sticking with a strategy that has failed so completely for a half century is not going to get it done.
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