Post Wire Services
August 29, 2007
HAVANA - Hillary Rodham Clinton got a boost yesterday from an unwanted source - Fidel Castro.
A column purportedly written by the badly ailing Cuban dictator said that Clinton would likely win the presidency in 2008, with Barack Obama as her running mate.
"The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate," Castro wrote in a piece about U.S. presidents published by the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
Meanwhile, Castro offered a favorable assessment of only one of the 10 men who have been president during his regime - Jimmy Carter.
"I only knew one who, for ethical-religious reasons, was not complicit to the brutal terrorism against Cuba: James Carter," the essay read.
Castro complained that all presidential candidates seeking the "coveted" votes of Florida have had to demand a democratic government in Cuba to win the backing of the powerful Cuban exile community.
Clinton and Obama, both senators, called for democratic change in Cuba last week.
Castro, 81, has not appeared in public since intestinal illness forced him to hand over power to his brother, Raul, in July last year.
He has turned to writing dozens of columns and essays, but rumors that he may be dead have swirled through Miami in the last two weeks.
Castro's only reference to President Bush in his latest essay was to say that he "needed fraud" to win Florida's Electoral College votes and the presidency in the fiercely contested election in 2000.
Castro said former President Bill Clinton was "really kind" when he bumped into him and the two men shook hands at a U.N. summit meeting in 2000.
He also praised Bill Clinton for sending police to "rescue" shipwrecked Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives in 2000.
