GOP wants Dem. La. Gov. Blanco censured

NEW ORLEANS, March 14 (UPI) -- Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco is facing censure by the state's Republican Party after her face-to-face meeting with Cuba's Fidel Castro.

A report appearing Monday in the New Orleans Times-Picayune said state GOP Chairman Roger Villere raised the idea at the request of aides to President George W. Bush, who asked the party take a strong stand against Blanco's meeting with the Cuban dictator.

"The State Department and the White House have requested that we take a position," Villere said after the meeting. "We are going to be against her meeting with Castro. It is an insult to our foreign policy and the president of the United States."

One member of the group, Cuban American businessman Nemo Viso of Baton Rouge, said Blanco met with the communist dictator, but could not find time to meet with anti-Castro dissidents during her trip, the paper said.

Blanco, a Democrat, recently returned from a three-day tour of the island nation that ended with her Castro meeting.