In a story filled with kind words to Cuba's murderous dictator of 45 years, the AP finds not one line to waste on any such thing as his political gulags, the many thousands who have precipitously fled his country or the many thousands who have died at his hands since his successful Marxist coup overtook the island nation.
Not only is the AP story filled with wide-eyed wonder at how nice Castro is to give these students of "minority backgrounds" a free medical education, AP helps them give voice against capitalism, too.
"I've learned that medicine is not a business, it's social, it's humane," said Toussaint Reynolds, a graduate from Massapequa, New York. "I will be a better doctor in the United States for it."
And, after we are regaled on how great the schooling was and how the students will have a "great advantage over American students" we are told that the mean, mean US government won't guarantee that these propagandists will be allowed to practice in the USA.
U.S. authorities have suggested, however, that it is unclear whether Americans who receive Cuban medical training can meet licensing requirements in the United States. The graduates will have to pass two exams to apply for residency at American hospitals, then eventually pass a third.
Not only is the government a bunch of meanies, but these students think there will be "discrimination" against them.
"Do I think there will be prejudices against us when we go back to the States and are looking for residences? Yes, it's inevitable," said Kenya Bingham, from Alameda, California. "I think there will be just due to the simple fact that there are political differences between the two countries."
"Political difference between the two countries," Miss Bingham? I wonder, Miss Bingham, would you chalk it up to mere "political differences" if YOUR parents were jailed as political dissidents and tortured in prison like that of so many Cuban refugees?
And I mentioned the advertisement that AP gave to Michael Moore's propaganda movie, "Sicko?"
The students held a news conference with the Rev. Lucius Walker, leader of the U.S. nonprofit Pastors for Peace. He has worked closely with the graduates. He said about 100 other Americans are currently enrolled at the Latin American School, and another 18 are starting next month.Michael Moore's hit documentary "Sicko'" praised Cuba's universal health care system, featuring scenes where the filmmaker brought ailing Sept. 11 rescue workers to the island for treatment.
Graduate Carmen Landau, 30, of Oakland, California, noted in an e-mail that chronic shortages of medicine and equipment in Cuba — much of it caused by the embargo — make health care here far more complicated than Moore's documentary suggested.
"This is a highly flawed system," Landau wrote. "After six years here I could go on and on regarding things that I think should be different."
But she also praised "Sicko," saying "it may be what we need to reform a system that is broken in the United States."
Moore couldn't have paid for better advertising... or maybe he did? With the AP these days, who can tell?
