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I am amazed at this story, unearthed and reported by Humberto Fontova over at TownHall.com.  Liberal Congresswoman Maxine Waters made waves recently with her civil and polite pronouncement that the Tea Party can go "straight to Hell." 

One might be inclined to think that Ms. Waters, in our newly christened era of civility post-Tucson, might be shamed into apologizing for such a provocative and mean-spirited outburst.  So when I saw the headline that Maxine Waters apologized, I naturally assumed it was to the Tea Party.

Silly me.

Maxine is a died-in-the-wool liberal, and as we all know, they make no mistakes - particularly in the area of political discourse.  Just ask them.  But when they do acknowledge faults, it's almost always for not being liberal enough.  Or in Maxine's case, not communist enough.

Dear, sweet Maxine's apology that I saw listed in the headline wasn't a recent one, but rather one that occurred eleven years ago (probably the last time she acknowledged a fault).  And the object to which she was apologizing was no conservative, fiscally responsible, balanced budget-minded American citizen.  No, she was apologizing to communist thug dictator Fidel Castro.  She wrote to him to ask his forgiveness for an unintentional vote she made in Congress that called on Castro to return wanted felons (including a cop-killer) to the United States.  Ms. Waters was quite repentant:

"Dear President Castro," she wrote on September 29, 1998, "I am writing to clarify my position on a resolution recently passed by the United States House of Representatives on September 14, 1998. I, and some of the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, mistakenly voted for House Concurrent Resolution 254 which called on the Government of Cuba to extradite to the United States Joanne Chesimard and all other individuals who have fled the United States from political persecution and received political asylum in Cuba. Joanne Chesimard was the birth name of a political activist known to most Members of the Congressional Black Caucus as Assata Shakur. For the record, I am opposed to the resolution. I unequivocally stated that a mistake was made and I would have voted against the legislation."

Interesting that Waters would describe Chesimard as an "activist."  Here's how the New Jersey police department describes her:

On May 2, 1973 New Jersey State Troopers James Harper and Werner Foerster were patrolling the New Jersey Turnpike in the area of East Brunswick and stopped a car with three occupants. The Troopers were questioning the occupants when the driver and female passenger suddenly came up with semi-automatic pistols and opened fire. Trooper Foerster was struck twice in the chest, and Trooper Harper was hit in the shoulder. The female (Joane Chesimard) then proceeded to take the service weapon from the injured Trooper Foerster's. She pointed it at the wounded Trooper and shot him twice in the head, execution style. The thirty-four-year-old trooper with just three years on the road died soon after. He left a wife and family behind.

So how did this cop-killer get "asylum" in Cuba, you ask?  How did she escape the arm of justice in the United States?  Here's how:

In 1977 the female shooter was convicted and sentenced to life plus 26 to 33 years in prison. On November 2, 1979 in the daylight hours this convicted murderer was serving her time when she was taken from her cell to the visitor's area to meet with four people who had come to see her. It was a setup. The four visitors took a Corrections Officer hostage. They then took a prison driver hostage. Using the hostages, the visitors helped her escape. She eluded capture for several years until 1986 when she made her way to Cuba. There she was granted political asylum. She has been there ever since.

So, liberal Democrat Maxine Waters has no remorse over telling her fellow countrymen with whom she disagrees politically to go "straight to Hell," but she does feel just awful about asking Castro to return a vicious cop-killer to the United States so that the officer's family can see that justice is served?

I don't know how someone's conscious allows them to continue to support the left - who they are and what they stand for - in this country.  I truly don't.