Giuliani: "Castro is a murderer. ... So is his brother" (UPDATED)

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani told the crowd — well, presumably most of the crowd — what it wanted to hear during a campaign stop tonight at a Little Havana restaurant in Miami.

The Miami Herald has the breaking news:

If there were a conservative litmus test for the Cuban exile community, Giuliani would have aced it.

He vowed to maintain the embargo and travel restrictions on visiting the island, and he railed against Castro. When Castro visited New York City in 1995 for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, Giuliani, then the city's mayor, explicitly excluded him from a banquet of world leaders.

''Castro is a murderer. I know it, I will never forget it,'' he said. ``So is his brother. I know it, I will never forget it.''

Later, when he delivered his trademark message about going on the offensive against terrorists, he added: ``You understand the necessity of being strong in the face of dictators and terrorists, and Americans will be strong if I am president of the United States.''

That kind of tough talk is easy during a campaign. It makes perfect sense. If it's a close race, like in 2000 and 2004, Florida will be key, and winning a close race in Florida means winning the votes of Cuban Americans. No surprise then that Giuliani — who all but admitted he was pandering during his swing through Florida — would toss out the red meat.

The tougher job, for Giuliani or anyone who wins the election, will be to translate the rhetoric into a policy and action that reflects the reality on the ground, and represents a real chance for success, and the liberation of a nation.

The challenge for all the candidates is to lay out a vision on Cuba that does just that.

UPDATED, June 22, 2007

The N.Y. Times' political blog quotes Giuliani attacking the fools and idiots who would romanticize Fidel Castro:

“I find it particularly disturbing when American politicians and Hollywood people embrace Fidel Castro. I don’t know if they understand they are embracing a murderer, a dictator, a man who has been horrible to gays and lesbians, particularly focused on homosexuals,” he said during a brief session with reporters. “He had a whole campaign to basically, I would call it torture gays and lesbians. I don’t get it when the Hollywood people kind of embrace him.”