Fidel Castro's retirement

I did a lot of driving today so I heard a lot about the "retirement" of Cuba's 81-year-old Comandante En Jefe, Fidel Castro.

The commentators went on and on -- about Castro's half-century of dictatorship and how he thoroughly frustrated Washington year in and year out. Of course the regime's prisoners of conscience were at the top of the list .

I heard absolutely nothing about the brutal, US-friendly, "casino" dictator Fulgencio Batista, who murdered about 20,000 Cubans and was eventually overthrown by Castro and his allies a half century ago. Not a word about Cuba's great achievements in literacy, education and medicine since then. Plenty about the US embargo that has made so many Cubans suffer, and a little about how other countries have engaged with Cuba.

Most of the commentary was about Castro's dictatorship. In the meantime, not a word recalling US support in the 1980s for the murderous Salvadoran and Guatemalan regimes or for the Contras that brutalized Nicaragua. And not a word about how our government has continued to support dictatorships like Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

I should have switched to a music station today.