Farewell, Fidel

I hope this is the last year we have to put up with Fidel Castro.

He’s 81, he’s a dictator, and he needs to kick the bucket.

He’s also senile, I think, as indicated by his latest comments in which he said he did not want to be known as “a person clinging to power.”

Uh, Fidel, you’ve been “clinging to power” since 1959. For 17 months, you’ve been so sick that you can’t “cling to power” openly, so you do it from a hospital bed.

He keeps vowing not to stand in the way of younger leaders ... but he keeps “clinging to power.”

His idea of a “youth movement” is handing off power to his brother Raul — a sprite of 79!

And he’s still on the ballot for Cuba’s phony elections Jan. 20.

You know how that game works in communist countries, don’t you? A hand-picked slate of “candidates” is presented to voters, who can play along and rubber-stamp the ballot … or wake up in a re-education camp.

That’s “democracy” under communism.

Whatever. The open secret in Cuba is that Castro really only wants to outlast the second term of President Bush, which expires at noon on Jan. 20, 2009.

I hope Castro expires first.

Then, and only then, will he no longer be “clinging to power.”