Bob Menendez: Cuban-American Hero or Cuban-
American Castroite?

Murray Sabrin

Governor-elect Corzine’s appointment of Congressman Robert Menendez to fill the remaining year of his U.S. Senate term was no surprise. Corzine had been signaling the Menendez appointment since he jumped into the governor’s race a year ago.

In all the press reports about the life and career of Bob Menendez, he is always identified as the son of Cuban immigrants. The implication is that Menendez’s parents fled Castro-ruled Cuba. In yesterday’s Record columnist Mike Kelly writes, “As the son of Cuban –American parents, who fled the brutal hand of Fidel Castro…” stating in no uncertain terms that Menendez’s parents arrived in America to escape Castro’s brutal totalitarian regime. (Emphasis added)

In his address accepting governor-elect Corzine’s appointment to the U.S. Senate, Menendez said, “My own parents came to this country fleeing tyranny and searching for freedom.” Again, Menendez implied his parents fled Cuba because of Castro’s oppressive policies. And journalists have been inferring that the Menendez family escaped the Castro regime.

There is one major problem with the newspaper reports about Menendez’s parents’ migration from Cuba, and Mike Kelly’s column. Bob Menendez was born in New York on January 1, 1954, exactly five years before Castro seized power on January 1, 1959. Menendez’s parents arrived in America well before Castro ousted the dictatorial Batista regime. In other words, the Menendez family did not leave Cuba because of Castro. Why did they leave Cuba? Were Mr. and Mrs. Menendez brutalized by Batista—the Cuban dictator of the early 1950s? If so, how were they able to leave Cuba?

Numerous questions remain unanswered about the Menendez’s family migration to America. Will the congressman set the record straight?

The Menendez family apparently left Cuba to seek better opportunities in America, and so did millions of families from the Caribbean, Europe, Asia and other parts of the world in the post World War II period. The Menendez family’s journey to America is not terribly remarkable. So why does the congressman and the media bring it up all the time?

The Bob Menendez story is political mythology at its worst. Son of oppressed parents who fled Castro’s Cuba (myth) navigates the jungle of Hudson County politics to become a United States Senator, achieving the “American Dream.” Is being appointed to the United States by one of the most left-wing public officials in America a badge of honor, and being a political boss of one of the most corrupt counties in the country achieving the American Dream? Apparently so.

In Hudson County where politicians ostensibly go to prison more often than they go to church, Bob Menendez has survived unscathed for three decades while numerous pols in his legislative district have ended up in prison garb.

Will Menendez get a primary challenge? If Menendez’s possible challengers, Congressmen Andrews and Pallone, cannot be persuaded by Jon Corzine to stay out of the race, then the political opposition researchers may have a field day investigating Bob Menendez’s career in Hudson County.

Politically, Bob Menendez is a collectivist, an unapologetic defender of the welfare state, opponent of tax cuts and the Second Amendment, an unabashed proponent of abortion, a supporter of affirmative action, a passionate defender of the Cuban embargo and an opponent of the Iraq war. In short, he is right on only one issue--the war. Menendez voted against giving President Bush authority to invade Iraq. I would have done the same. Thus, on one of the most important issues facing America he voted to limit presidential war making powers. For that I salute him.

Although Bob Menendez took the courageous position on the Iraq war, he nevertheless supports the iron fist of the federal government in virtually all other areas of life in America. His support of the 40 year old American trade embargo with Cuba is despicable. The victims of the embargo are the Cuban people—the people he claims he loves--and American farmers and businesses that want to sell their products to the Caribbean island. In short, Menendez has played the anti-Castro card in his rise to power as well as any American politician.

The Cuban embargo has been a total failure. Castro has been in office since 1959 despite the chokehold the American government has put on the Cuban economy and its people. Nevertheless, Menendez along with politicians on both sides of the aisle in the Congress have continued to support the most despotic foreign policy of the past half century. His “compassion” for the poor Cuban people is certainly suspect.

In the final analysis, Bob Menendez could have been a Cuban-American hero if he would believe in freedom and liberty. The backdrop of Governor-elect Corzine’s announcement that he was appointing Bob Menendez to the United States in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty is a travesty. Instead of supporting limited government at home and abroad--the Cuban embargo is in many ways an act of war—Bob Menendez is an anti-Castro Castroite. He believes in the brutality of the welfare state—the redistribution of income--and an aggressive policy toward a neighboring country, Cuba, that is not a threat to the United States. That’s why his appointment to the United States Senate by Jon Corzine is such a disappointment.

Murray Sabrin, Ph.D., is professor of finance in the School of Business, Ramapo College of New Jersey, where he is also executive director of the Center for Business and Public Policy, www.ramapo.edu/cbpp.