Castro devoted the bulk of his minute speech to countering charges levied by Mr. Bush that his government fosters tourism prostitution and child pornography. He strongly implied that President Bush cannot distinguish between his imagination and reality.
Justin A. Frank, Castro suggested that Mr. Bush's accusations against Cuba's socialist government may be rooted in his untreated alcoholic past. In the book, Frank, a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, deals with the president's admitted two-decade-long drinking problem and possible thought disorders that lead him to invent enemies so that he can destroy them.
Castro noted Mr. Bush called the "tourism industry here sexual tourism and the people who come here pedophiles and pleasure seekers" applying those descriptions not only to American visitors but to Canadian tourists. Finally, tackling the latest White House measures to undermine his government, Castro warned President Bush that he may have been misled "by hatred and blindness" into taking "stupid and immoral actions" that could cost him votes in November.
Ordinary Cubans, already irritated by the White House's latest punishing measures toward the island, also saw red when Mr. Bush accused Castro of cynically promoting sex tourism and child prostitution. Bush as "a vital source of hard currency to keep his corrupt government afloat.
Most don't buy the president's claim that his new Cuba policy is designed to stamp out prostitution. Instead they see it as promoting the breakup of the Cuban family by severely limiting the frequency of visits.
