Justin Webb's America

Cuban question

• Justin Webb
• 19 Feb 08, 06:58 PM GMT

MIAMI: I've just arrived in Little Havana, Miami, to find out what Cuban exiles make of this morning's news that Fidel Castro is stepping down.

The honest answer is that while there are a few grizzled veterans of the struggle who are more excited than they have been at any stage of the last 50 years, the crowd is pretty thin, and so younger Cubans have gone to work as normal. This is not the great outpouring of joy that there would have been 20 years ago at the news that Fidel was gone from power.

Having said that, the people I've talked to are really confident that there is going to be real change in Cuba soon - and I guess the question for America's next president is whether that change would come more quickly with the embargo, or without it.

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Borrowed words

• Justin Webb
• 19 Feb 08, 02:40 AM GMT

The spat over whether Obama plagiarised the words of Deval Patrick - the black Governor of Massachusetts - is almost too ludicrous to be serious. The idea that Obama is a phoney - that he simply copied this movement from others - is so plainly barmy as to make me wonder whether the Clinton people are deluded or desperate. The charge is also - I can reveal - old. BBC senior producer Adi Raval brings this to my attention - note the date!

They will have to do better than that. In Texas meanwhile things are looking close.

And a well-informed but hardly surprising glimpse of what lies in store for Obama if he manages to topple her is contained here.

The other issue of the moment: did John McCain shoot himself in the foot by seeking and receiving the backing of President Bush Senior?

It was a rather elderly gathering to be sure - not as energetic as an Obama rally. Not utterly future oriented. Yet who knows what will be cool in November. America looks at the moment like No Country for Old Men - but change could be yesterday's cry by then...

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