Campaign Shock: Democrat Rep. Maurice Hinchey Uses Meeting with Castro to Raise Money UPDATED

The race for NY-22 has been a bit of a sleeper up to now, but it might wake up quickly. It turns out that Rep. Maurice Hinchey, the Democrat incumbent, has been using a photo of himself with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro to raise money for his campaign.  Capitol Hill Cubans has posted the invite, which is worth putting up here and everywhere else.

Which one is the pet here?

By now Castro’s history is well known to anyone with a clue.  He has spent the past several decades as a torturing, oppressing, America-hating, terrorist-supporting Communist thug. Hinchey’s history may need a little refreshing — up to now he’s best known outside his district for asserting that the Bush administration let Osama bin Laden go free on purpose to justify the Iraq war.  Classy.

Like Moe over at Red State, I get that there are honorable arguments on both sides of the Cuba embargo. I’m conflicted over it these days myself — if I thought that a fatally strong dose of capitalism right now would push that regime over the edge, I’d be all for it. Whatever sweeps the Castro crime family out of power and brings freedom to the island is fine by me. But going by his history, Hinchey isn’t interested in Cuba’s freedom. He’s just interested in cozying up to an American enemy. Classy.

At any rate, George Phillips is the Republican who’s running to take NY-22 from Democrat piece-of-work Maurice Hinchey.  Phillips has already differentiated himself from Hinchey over ObamaCare — Hinchey voted for it, while Phillips says he would’ve voted against it.

I’m spitballin’ that Phillips wouldn’t sidle up to Weirdbeard for any reason, at all.

UPDATE: Republican nominee George Phillips is wasting no time blasting Hinchey.  Here’s Phillips’ reaction, given exclusively to PJM:

“It’s appalling that a sitting member of the United States Congress would use a photo of himself and Fidel Castro to raise money. Castro imprisoned, tortured and killed thousands of his own people and has been one of the world’s most infamous dictators in the past half century. I hope the American people will join me in fighting to fire a US congressman so directly opposed to America’s founding principles.”