House Democrats showed naiveté in a recent trip to Havana, looking only at what the still-repressive Castro government wanted them to see,
The Washington Post editorial board writes in a column published this weekend.
The Post slammed the gullibility of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who led a House delegation, and Sens. Mark Warner, Amy Klobuchar and Claire McCaskill, saying "the tone and tenor of which were too starry-eyed by half."
Klobuchar, the column noted "gushed that she and her colleagues 'walked freely around the streets and talked with anyone we wanted.'" She was "apparently oblivious to the political surveillance within which those 'free' conversations occurred," the Post said.
McCaskill, meanwhile, posted "charming photos of vintage cars on her Instagram account," the editorial board said. She included "nothing depressing, like images of Cuba’s poverty, though."
Both House and Senate delegations met with officials of the Castro regime, including Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel, whom President Raul Castro has designated to succeed him, but neither group met with dissidents, the Post noted.
The team met, instead, with "unidentified 'civil society' representatives," the column reads.
Obama announced an easing of travel restrictions to the communist country in January after five decades of a strict embargo that began in the Kennedy administration.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy did meet with Cuban dissidents during a January trip, but afterward it was announced that any more visits would be delayed because of scheduling issues.
Since the House and Senate groups arrived as scheduled without meeting dissidents, the Post suggested that Washington's access to the Cuba may be dependent on avoiding meetings with Castro foes.
"All of the members of Congress deny such an arrangement and told us they brought up human rights with regime officials," the Post wrote.
Still, the Post said, the timing of the trips and the appearances created, serve as a reminder that the Castro regime is still a gatekeeper to the island nation.
"No one, not even a politically powerful American visitor, is immune to being exploited by the Cuban propaganda machine," the Post said. "Official contacts must not sugarcoat or lend undeserved legitimacy to a dynastic dictatorship that remains one of the most repressive on the planet."