Pinocchio Rivera
By Varela
In our political stew, a Republican is serious, always tells the truth, goes to church on Sunday, wears a suit, is married, has children and the children grow up just like him.
His heirs are neat and healthy, without sexual deviations. If they have any, they are disinherited and their surnames are changed.
In their agendas, abortion is bad, homosexuals are sick, immigrants are drunkards, and the Cuban government is infernal.
Their speeches always promise to create laws against that communist Caribbean government. Then they pass the hat and collect political tithes to liquidate the Castro brothers.
So, the sky falls upon us when we discover that our perfect right-wingers are two-faced, as in the famous story about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
We accept that, in addition to their vocation for improving our communities, they stick their hands into the public trough and under the skirts of their secretaries, because that’s what smart guys and machos do. But anti-Castroism is nothing to fool around with.
An anti-Castro double standard is unacceptable, because it converts our paladin in a shameless opportunist who has taken advantage of us.
That accurately describes our Republican leader David Rivera. He has denied his relationship with the evil Ariel Pereda.
Pereda is what is called a taboo friendship in Miami. In other words, he does business with Cuba. He’s one of the friends you have to meet in dark bars outside the city. Or in rooftops or alleys. And don’t accept his phone calls, because they’re tapped. Much less e-mail, because everything’s being hacked since Sept. 11.
I ask: Who is worse? David or his little friend?
Pereda says he now supports Joe Garcia, a consummate local democrat. But he acknowledges that he raised some money for Rivera. (Really, he was the president of a fund-raising committee for his friend.) And he doesn’t deny knowing Rivera back in the old politicking days.
Nevertheless, Rivera denies the friendship and almost sat down to see if he could remember the name Pereda when he was asked about Pereda.
Local politicians insist that both men have been good friends ever since Robert Dole’s presidential campaign back in 1996. Local journalists dug into the files and found videos of Rivera with Pereda; in Rivera’s Facebook page, they found Pereda’s photo among Rivera’s favorite friends.
The usual wiseacres say that li’l David and li’l Ariel went to high school together, shared lunch and fooled around with the cheerleaders during football games.
Voters, anti-Castro activists, and campaign donors have screamed bloody murder. “How could our great David, a man who opposes trade with Cuba, be the friend of a person whose company advises other companies about trading with Cuba?”
It was Nietzsche long ago who, with one sentence, encapsulated this drama:
“I’m not upset that you lied to me. I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
