Does this mean the guy on the left is out, also?

For a good Hollywood leftist that, for half a century now, has been rationalizing Cuban human rights abuses because everyone gets free dental check-ups... now what?

Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

The fact that things are not working efficiently on this cash-strapped Caribbean island is hardly news. Fidel's brother Raul, the country's president, has said the same thing repeatedly. But the blunt assessment by the father of Cuba's 1959 revolution is sure to raise eyebrows.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, asked if Cuba's economic system was still worth exporting to other countries, and Castro replied: "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore" Goldberg wrote Wednesday in a post on his Atlantic blog.

He said Castro made the comment casually over lunch following a long talk about the Middle East, and did not elaborate. The Cuban government had no immediate comment on Goldberg's account.

No doubt a three-martini lunch, lefties, where perhaps Fidel was getting a little sloppy and might have misspoke. But as they say, In vino veritas.

But let not your heart be troubled, oh intrepid Hollywood gulag apologists. Fidel's brother and current president, Raul Castro is putting his own twist on a truism we've come to know and love around here and that is: The statist's solution to failed statist policies is simply the same statist policies.

President Raul Castro and others have instituted a series of limited economic reforms, and have warned Cubans that they need to start working harder and expecting less from the government. But the president has also made it clear he has no desire to depart from Cuba's socialist system or embrace capitalism.

"...start working harder and expecting less from the government." aka, pretty much the exact opposite of the Obama administration's governing philosophy.