Stop Me Before I Vote Again

At last, something Obie and Hillary and I can agree on. We all think the Myerses are wonderful.

Here's the New York Times on the Myers story. (Much as I hate the Times, it must be admitted that its coverage was less insane and hysterical than its eponymous ancestor, the Times of London.)

U.S. Charges Couple With Spying for Cuba

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department charged Friday that a former State Department analyst and his wife worked as spies for Cuba for nearly 30 years, using a short-wave radio to pass on secret diplomatic information to their Cuban handlers.

Officials said the couple, Walter K. Myers, 72, and Gwendolyn S. Myers, 71, received little in the way of compensation from the Cubans except for the short-wave radio and some travel expenses. Rather, the officials said, the couple appears to have been driven by their strong affinity for Cuba and their bitterness toward “American imperialism.”

“We think they did it because they love Cuba,” said a law enforcement official....

The case had been under investigation for three years but intensified two months ago....

The Justice Department said that Mr. Myers examined some 200 intelligence reports that dealt with Cuba in 2006 and 2007, many of them classified or top-secret reports that were unrelated to his own duties at the State Department.

David Kris, the assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department, called the Myerses’ activity for Cuba “incredibly serious.”

....This April, an undercover agent from the F.B.I., posing as a Cuban official, approached Mr. Myers outside the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, where he taught. The agent.... offered Mr. Myers a cigar and wished him a happy birthday.

Mr. Myers and his wife told the agent that they hoped to “sail home” to Cuba some day on their sailboat....

Owen will perhaps remember an old Commie friend of ours -- now dead, alas, in the line of duty -- who took a great interest in what he called, with vast approval, "turncoats": children of privilege, with insider access, who took up the lefty cause in a serious way, and betrayed their class for real. His great exemplar of such atheist saints was Kim Philby. Alger Hiss might make the list too, in a smaller way, and surely the Myerses deserve an honorable mention at the very least.

I love 'em, the Myerses. I even share their fantasy of escaping to Cuba on a sailboat -- wrote a very bad and unpublishable novel once, with just that as the premise.

I wish they had done more damage. But it's the thought that counts.

Obie and Hillary, of course, will find this all very convenient, as the Rosenbergs were convenient in their day. Any thought of rapprochement with Cuba is now postponed to the Greek Kalends.

One wonders what the corresponding excuse will be for Palestine. Stay tuned.