Critics of President Obama’s upcoming visit to Cuba ought to chill out for a moment or two.

They’re raking Obama over the coals because, they say, he’s lending “legitimacy” to the dictators who are running the island nation. They’re a bunch of commie Marxists who don’t deserve a visit from the head of state of the world’s most powerful nation, they say.

Hey, let’s take a breath.

The president is going there to continue the normalization of relations between the nations. The Cold War is over. We won. Cuba no longer presents any kind of threat to this nation. Its benefactor, the Soviet Union, receded into the dustbin more than 20 years ago.

What shouldn’t be lost is the opportunity that the president will have to tell Cuban President Raul Castro of the concerns the United States still has over the communists’ treatment of their citizens. Obama says he’ll bring it up directly. Face to face. Man to man.

Let us also be mindful that the two men will be able to speak outside of earshot of prying media representatives. Does anyone ever really with utter certainty what two leaders ever say to each other when no one is listening?

The president insists that the visit will keep the normalization process moving forward. Part of that movement must depend on assurances that the Cubans are going to do better at recognizing the rights of all human beings — and that should include their own citizens.

Look at it this way as well: Did the Texas Republican governor, Greg Abbott, just visit with Cuba on a trade mission aimed at boosting commerce between Texas and our nation’s former enemy?

Where was the criticism of that visit?