Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, who this week drew the attention of President Barack Obama, wrote in an essay to Rep. Howard Berman, D-California, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, that lifting the ban on U.S. travel to Cuba "could bring more results in the democratization of Cuba than the indecisive performance of Raul Castro."

"Both peoples," she wrote of Cubans and Americans, "would come out winners." Berman read portions of Sanchez's essay at an impassioned House of Representatives hearing on whether to lift the travel ban, noting that both critics and supporters of the decades-old ban had cited Sanchez's recent beating and detention at the hands of Cuban security forces.

"Three, that's the number of Cuban agents who threw a blogger head-first into an unmarked black car and beat her for speaking about freedom," said Rep. Connie Mack, R-Florida, dubbing the effort to lift the ban a "Castro bailout, a bailout for beatings, oppression, rape, torture, corruption and tyranny."

Sanchez, an increasingly brassy blogger, got even more attention Thursday when she got a response from Obama, to whom she had posed seven questions in an effort to engage in a bit of "popular diplomacy." She also posted questions to Raul Castro, who had yet to reply.