Che chic?

Fresh off its big victories in the Potomac primaries, the Barack Obama campaign turned its attention to the next big state primaries in Ohio and Texas on March 4. Obama’s campaign headquarters in Houston opened amid controversy, as one of the staffers there had juxtaposed the “Obama * Change” banner with a Cuban flag with the image of Che Guevara on it. Obama denied involvement and rejected any idea that he himself supported the ideas of Che or Castro. But local news affiliates were not so quick to let the candidate off the hook, and bloggers likewise saw a linking between support of Obama and support for the revolution of Che Guevara.

Who was Ernesto “Che” Guevara? The image above is all the rage, appearing on T-shirts and other paraphernalia. In my Spanish class at JCC in the first semester, our instructor showed us the 2004 film “The Motorcycle Diaries” that depicted Guevara in his pre-revolutionary days, making a motorcycle trip around South America and doing such noble things as spending three weeks in a leper colony that was ruled over by tyrannical nuns. After viewing the movie, the profesora asked for opinions, and I hated to tell her I didn’t think much of it. Why not, she asked? Because it glorified a commie who was the enemy of the United States and who was a mass murderer.

Guevara died in 1967, executed in Bolivia while trying to foment a communist revolution there. Cuban-Americans despise him and cannot fathom why young American college students think it is “cool” to glorify this evil man. I think it is interesting that the Cuban-American voters in South Florida went 5-1 for John McCain in the Florida Republican primary. Soon afterward, none other than Fidel Castro himself criticized McCain, calling him a liar for claiming that Cubans were among the prison guards at the Hanoi Hilton, where McCain was a prisoner of war for six years. McCain’s answer to Castro? “For me to respond to Fidel Castro, who has oppressed and repressed his people and who is one of the most brutal dictators on Earth, for me to dignify any comments he might make is certainly beneath me.”

Of course, Obama himself is not going to come out and say “viva la revolucion” or “hip, hip for Che!” But those “Americans” who love and admire Castro and Guevara see a hero and messiah in Mr. “Change” himself.

Birds of a feather…