Yet the president’s actions hardly qualify as a profile in courage. He held off making the announcement last fall, when hawks in Congress, including Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Albio Sires (D-NJ) warned that easing anti-Cuba measures could hurt Democrats' re-election chances, and when the decision was made it was released late on Friday evening, while Republicans were out of town on a retreat. Yet more than two-thirds of voters support easing travel restrictions on Cuba, and 75 percent (86 percent of Democrats) back the idea of a meeting between US and Cuban leaders. Conservative groups, from the US Chamber of Commerce to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops want to end the isolation of Cuba. And in the end, what Obama did only gets American policy back roughly to where it was during the Clinton administration, before George W. Bush tightened the screws.

The usual suspects made noises: Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chairwoman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, condemned Obama’s decision, and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) called it a "gift to the Castro brothers." It remains to be seen if Obama will quietly ignore their ilk and move forward to end the embargo once and for all. The Cuban foreign ministry, while calling Obama’s actions "positive," concluded: "They have a very limited reach and do not change US policy against Cuba." It's past time for change we do believe in.