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pundit central:

Let's Hear It for the Boy

Michael Brus
Posted Monday, April 10, 2000, at 3:49 AM ET

Issue 1 is Elián. Issue 2 is the presidential race.

The González lawyers make the Sunday morning rounds. The lawyers for the Miami relatives are more conciliatory than last week; only one--Jose Garcia-Pedrosa, on CBS's Face the Nation--calls Elián's father an unfit parent, and all the lawyers promise that Elián's great-uncle will surrender the boy peacefully if so ordered. On NBC's Meet the Press, Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon asserts that Elián's father has freedom of choice and then predicts that the father will return to Cuba with his son. A Fox News poll (on Fox News Sunday) shows that 53 percent of Americans want Elián to go home with his father, while 32 percent want him to stay in the U.S. with his great uncle. A Miami Herald poll (highlighted by CNN's Late Edition) shows that in Miami, 50 percent want Elián to stay, 44 percent want him to return.

Elián (who is invariably referred to as "poor Elián" or "little Elián") divides the pundits. Some, such as Margaret Carlson (CNN's Capital Gang) and Juan Williams (FNS), think that the father has dibs on his son and that Cuba is not coercing him. Others, such as Brit Hume (FNS), want the issue settled by a family court. A third group, including George F. Will (ABC's This Week) and Steve Roberts (LE), wants Elián to stay in the U.S., no matter what. (Will compares Cuba to the antebellum South, while Roberts--who used to side with the Clinton administration--thinks that Elián has formed a loving bond with his Miami relatives.) Both Kate O'Beirne (CG) and Tucker Carlson (LE) predict that Cuba will exploit Elián as a Communist icon. ("He used to have just the same kind of crummy childhood in Cuba every other child in Cuba has," says O'Beirne. "He now has to ... prop up the revolution.") Will the INS use force? Tucker Carlson asserts that, off-the-record, Justice Department officials favor such a move if they encounter defiance. Hume says that the prospect of INS forcibly removing Elián presents the administration with "another potential Waco."

How does all this affect Al Gore's presidential aspirations? Both Paul Gigot (PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer) and Sen. Trent Lott (FTN), R-Miss., blast Gore for speaking near Miami last week and not mentioning Elián. But Tom Oliphant (NH) says that Gore's silence is only responsible, because undermining the INS at this point could start a riot. Susan Page (LE) predicts that Gore's support for residency status for Elián will hurt his popularity nationally.


Miscellany

Tony Blankley, the McLaughlin Group's self-described libertarian, hoots at conservatives' "paranoid" fears of census questionnaires. ("The Census Bureau owns no black helicopters.") ... TW conducts a focus group and concludes that voters care about neither Gore's shady fund raising nor Bush's dirty electioneering. ... On FNS, Tony Snow tweaks ABC for its much-publicized internal revolt over whether to air a Leonardo DiCaprio interview with President Clinton. LE also ribs ABC, albeit a bit more subtly: They show a Clinton sound bite about the scandal.


The Inquisitor (FNS Version)

BRIT HUME: If this were your son, would you have any disposition to thank the people who have been caring for him--and who have certainly tried to do their best for him, have they not?

BO COOPER (DOJ): If this were my son, I'd want him home fast.

HUME: I didn't ask you that question, sir. Let me try it again. If this were your son, would you not feel some gratitude for the people who had taken him in and cared for him?

COOPER: I can't speak to whether or not his father has gratutude for--

HUME: I didn't ask you that. I asked you [that] if it were your son, would you not feel some gratitude toward those who had taken him in? And indeed toward those, as well, who saved his life?

COOPER: This is not a situation about my son. If I were the father, I would want my son back and quickly. The fishermen did a heroic thing in saving the child, obviously. The relatives in Miami have cared for the child under apparently loving circumstances. But the father is here, he wants his son back, he should have his son back.


Let My Pundits Go

Spencer Eig, an attorney for Elián's Miami relatives, repeatedly tells TW that Fidel Castro is a "pharoah." Since Eig is an observant Jew and Pundit Central is a lapsed Methodist, Pundit Central will take Eig at his word on this one. Eig's revelation, as it were, raises several important questions: a) Will Elián grow up to look like Charlton Heston? b) Will Elián's iconic status in Cuba inspire jealousy in his younger brother? c) Will Elián return to Cuba, only to break the shackles of his Communist slave-masters, part the waters in the Gulf of Mexico, and lead his people to the Promised Land of Dade County? d) If Janet Reno were to kick him out even after this biblical feat, would Israel offer him asylum?


Last Word

Of course in America, each of us has the constitutional right to silly or dumb speech. I have certainly asserted my right here tonight. But I think we should take another moment to honor that essential freedom, to recognize that vital principle, by asking the members of the McLaughlin Group to stand.

--President Clinton, at Thursday's Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner

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Michael Brus, a former Slate assistant editor, is a writer and social worker in Seattle.
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