Admit it. The second you heard that President Obama shook hands with Cuba's Raul Castro at the memorial for Nelson Mandela, you got nauseous. Oh, not because you think there's any problem with two world leaders not currently at or near war exchanging pleasantries or some such nonsense. No, you felt your gut twist because you knew the shitstorm that was about to rain its fecal self down all over the internets. There was no way that this gesture was going to go uncondemned by the fucknuts of the right. And, indeed, you were correct because fucknuts will be fucknuts.
There's America's angriest shelf-elf, John McCain, saying, weirdly, "Why should you shake hands with someone who’s keeping Americans in prison? I mean, what’s the point? Neville Chamberlain shook hands with Hitler."
Mona Charen, who apparently writes things, said on the National Review online, "[T]o witness the handshake between Obama and Raúl Castro makes the stomach turn." And she's been alone in a room with Newt Gingrich.
Marco Rubio, in his continuing performance art piece, "Marco Rubio Hasn't Turned Invisible," smacked, "If the president was going to shake his hand, he should have asked him about those basic freedoms Mandela was associated with that are denied in Cuba." He then added, sadly, slowly, "No, really, I'm still here. Hello?"
At a fucking congressional hearing today, Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of, yeah, Florida, told Secretary of State John Kerry, "[W]hen the leader of the free world shakes the bloody hand of a ruthless dictator like Raul Castro, it becomes a propaganda coup for the tyrant." Kerry wanted to roll his eyes, but those muscles have long since succumbed to the Botox.
From Breitbart to Rush Limbaugh, from the halls of Congress to the microphones of CNN, a loud, long fart of manufactured outrage was heard echoing around the nation. What a fine day for freedom and compassion. Frankly, there's a chance that the Cuban people are gonna be pissed that Castro shook hands with the dude who drone bombs the fuck out of innocent people.
Let's give the last word here to another conservative, John Podhoretz, who wrote, sanely, "There's plenty to attack Obama for. Attacking him for shaking someone's hand at a funeral begins to descend into self-parody." The only thing to argue about there is the word "begins."
