I don't think Sheila has the same feelings for Castro that our friend from Georgia had for the Arabs. Having lived in Houston (back when Mickey Leland held the seat) I just don't get the sense that Sheila is as much of a traitor as she is being painted in this thread. I think she believed the kid belonged with his father, which admittedly, is how I felt, politics aside. I know I'm not upholding the party line here, but that's what I felt. I also lived in South Florida and know what the Cuban community can be like, and I don't like the idea of a relatively small group of people in the country controlling our foreign policy. Well, you'll probably be calling me a traitor, too. But that's how it goes I guess.
The bottom line was that Sheila had practically no business in the matter but stuck herself in the middle of it at every opportunity. It's unusual that a Texas congresswoman would undertake so much effort to stick herself in the middle of a dispute taking place in South Florida as if she knew the issue better than the local reps there such as, say, Lincoln Diaz-Balart.
I also don't believe she cared one bit about the father's rights. For Sheila it was all another publicity stunt. As a constituent I've seen it all too often from her - she's madly in love with the camera and will claw her way to one at every chance. But if some problem in the district doesn't get her publicity she ignores it. I tend to think of her as Mickey Leland without tact, and that's not saying, IMHO, that he had much to begin with.