Why do we hate Cuba?

Our question today is why do we still hate Cuba? Okay, I know, Cuban missile crisis, but that was over forty years ago, and since then Cuba has more or less been a good world citizen. I know about the periodic bouts of repression, but those have taken place in many Central/South American and Carribean countries. Heck, right now we are supporting the gov't of Haiti who is sending death squads into some politically active neighborhoods and searching out and killing political activists. Not a peep from the Condi Rice State Dept.

So what is Cuba's big crime, big enough that we have tried to assassinate Castro on innumerable occasions?

I mean, read this AFP :

Tensions have escalated between Cuba's government and dissidents, but both sides bitterly rejected Washington's appointment this week of a "transition coordinator" to speed President Fidel Castro's downfall.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Thursday named Caleb McCarry the US "Cuba transition coordinator" to "accelerate the demise of Castro's tyranny" on the Caribbean island the Communist guerrilla leader has run since 1959. ......

The appointment of a transition coordinator was part of a plan signed into law by US President George W. Bush, designed to tighten sanctions already in place against Cuba for 40 years, including restrictions on visits of US families to their relatives on the island.

The recommendations were made over a year ago by a Bush-appointed commission, empaneled to find ways to accelerate the downfall of the Communist regime.

I find it difficult to believe that all this is, after forty years and god knows how much money lost, simply for some votes in Fla(although we now know that those can be pretty important.)

My best guess is that, at this point, it is to destroy a counter example. Just as they fear the independence of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, they cannot allow a successful Cuba which does not follow neoliberal capitalism.

Again, Kennedy's problems with Cuba were understandable, but since then, Castro has outlasted seven presidents and looks to outlast an eighth, and parts of three of those, the last fourteen years or so they have had no state sponsor. And despite the ridiculous claims that Cuba was developing a Bio-Weapons program from some of the Bush Crazies(again, not denied by Bolton,) they really haven't done anything.

So, help me out. Why do we still spend all this money and political capital on this tiny impoverished island?