On bullying

From the Center for Democracy in the Americas

Earlier this week, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen came out against verbal bullying.  She tweeted on Monday that “Verbal bullying is the most common form of bullying + negatively impacts teens.”

Now, people in public life can take care of themselves, but let’s remember that this is the same Rep. Ros-Lehtinen who has referred to people as “Castro apologists” for speaking accurately about Cuba’s measureable gains in health care; who has said analysts about Cuba’s progress in gender equality “are always trying to invent ways to heap praise on their favorite dictators in Havana”; who has referred to people who visit Cuba as “sex” tourists; defined efforts to release Alan Gross from captivity in Cuba as ‘concessions to terrorists’; and has repeatedly referred to decisions by the Obama administration to loosen travel restrictions (which mostly benefit her own Cuban-American constituents) as appeasement of the Cuban government.

She has made these comments not just in press statements but in the midst of House hearings, hearings she chaired, with her gavel in hand, when the people she was dressing down, often good public servants, didn’t have the right to speak or defend themselves without her permission. Of course, these witnesses weren’t teens, but they never deserved to be bullied. Nobody does.