Dancing with the devil

What is it about vile and murderous dictators that cause some people who otherwise seem rational to wax poetic about them? Do they find their homicidal escapades romantic in some way? Does their cruel demeanor and conscienceless ability to snuff out the lives of the innocent invoke some irresistible attraction? I have often wondered how the blood of tens of thousands of innocent Cubans can be washed away so easily by people such as Ronda Miller.
Ms. Miller has written a short piece titled “[c]astro’s Last Dance,” which recalls her childhood and hearing the grownups discussing fidel castro. Being just a child in rural Kansas, her thoughts turned to more fanciful things.

I would find a quiet spot to listen. As I listened I would drift away to Cuba. I would picture [c]astro dancing among his people in their bright red/orange/yellow clothing, which contrasted brilliantly against the white sand of their beaches.

Her childhood fantasy continues as she envisions castro as a “virile Robin Hood,” her idea of a selfless hero, risking his own life in the quest to help the less fortunate. It is a flight of the imagination that one might be willing to excuse coming from a child in rural Kansas in the early sixties. Those juvenile days are long gone however, and Ms. Miller has since grown up. Her whimsical view of the vile dictator of Cuba though, has not.

I don’t know how much time [c]astro has left on his beautiful island of Cuba.
I don’t know how the majority of his people feel about his reign. Some say he has brought better health care, education, and economy to his country.
I know that any leader who has served for as long as [c]astro must be loved by many people and hated by a few. Some fled under his leadership.

Unfortunately, Ms. Miller fails to realize that only dictators rule as long as her dancing tyrant has ruled and those who are their victims do not have the same rosy view of their oppressor she has. But none of that would seem to matter to Ms. Miller. As if to quash any possibility that her vision would be poisoned by reality and the memory of countless innocent Cubans killed by her waltzing despot, she ends her piece with this:

Tyrant or hero, I still picture [c]astro and he is dancing.

I wonder if Ms. Miller has ever imagined any other vile dictators dancing away the memory of the lives and families they destroyed.