Slate's Bizbox
pundit central:

Reno's Breakthrough

Michael Brus
Posted Monday, April 24, 2000, at 3:53 AM ET

Issue 1 is the seizure of Elián González by the Immigration and Naturalization service, which polarizes both the pundits and politicians.

GOP politicians promise congressional hearings. Many still don't have their facts straight: On NBC's Meet the Press, House GOP Whip Tom DeLay calls the INS's action unconstitutional because the agency had no search warrant. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, interviewed simultaneously, does not correct him. But later that morning INS Commissioner Doris Meissner tells CBS's Face the Nation and CNN's Late Edition that the INS obtained a search warrant the evening before the raid. And on Fox News Sunday, both Brit Hume and Gov. Frank Keating, R-Okla., concede that the government had the legal right to transfer custody.

Holder and Meissner explain the precautions the INS took, such as having an unarmed, bilingual female carry the boy out in a blanket and stay by his side until the reunion with his father, Juan Miguel. Holder says that the INS knocked on the door, waited ten seconds, then knocked again, waited twenty seconds, then knocked the door down. He says the submachine guns were intended to frighten the adults so that there would be no tug-of-war over the child. Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y., (FNS) blames the Miami police department for ignoring crowd control around the house; this would have allowed the INS to use less force. Later, Miami Mayor Joe Carollo (LE) makes the startling revelation that the INS gave the Miami police chief advance notice of the raid but prohibited the chief from warning the mayor. (An angry Carollo says his police chief still hasn't called him.)

The pundits split on the merits of the issue, with conservatives blaming the INS for Gestapo tactics and liberals praising Attorney General Janet Reno for her patience and resolve. Several pundits, as well as the Miami relatives' lawyers, note that the INS's psychologists made their recommendation to reunite son and father without ever having interviewed the child. (George F. Will [ABC's This Week], visibly angry, condemns the government's "crackpot child psychologist pediatric expert[s].") George Stephanopoulos (TW) argues that the Miami relatives did not negotiate in good faith, and when the INS knocked on their door, the relatives locked Elián in the bedroom and called in an Associated Press photographer.

Of course, the pundits would much rather talk about the politics of the issue and conspiracy theories. Most agree that Al Gore will not be hurt by the issue. (Mark Shields [CNN's Capital Gang] predicts that neither presidential candidate will mention Elián in his nomination-acceptance speech this summer.) George F. Will, however, predicts that congressional hearings will keep the issue alive. Several pundits, not to mention the Miami relatives' lawyers, claim that Juan Miguel's attorney Greg Craig called the INS's shots. Mara Liasson (FNS) points out that Craig has advised Gore's presidential campaign. Juan Williams (FNS) says that if the Clinton administration had not returned Elian to his father, Fidel Castro would have flooded Florida with refugees this summer. (This theory was floated by George Stephanopoulos several months ago.) Several talking heads also mention Marisleysis Gonzalez's contention that the government drugged Elian and doctored the photos of him with his father.


Russert's Airball

Tim Russert (MTP) interviews Michael Jordan, who pledges to get more involved in politics. Russert, who rakes most guests over the coals, gives His Airness easy layups like, "How important is it, to a young man growing up that they have a strong dad and a strong mom?" Granted, Jordan is not (yet) a political figure, but then why invite him on the show in the first place? The Jordan interview is part of a larger program of Russert's, which is to exalt black athletes (like Jordan, evangelical linebacker Reggie White, etc.) who make good role models. Pundit Central does not doubt Russert's intentions, but isn't this practice is a tad condescending? After all, it could be argued that Dennis Rodman, who grew up in a ghetto with a dysfunctional family, is more representative of the black underclass than Jordan, born into a Southern religious community with married, loving parents. And Pundit Central would bet that Rodman's angry, candid book speaks to troubled black kids in a way that Jordan's bland, respect-your-elders clichés cannot. But Rodman, of course, wouldn't promote Russert's upstanding, middle-class values.


Veep Stakes

The McLaughlin Group sizes up the vice-presidential field. GOP possibilities: [first tier] John McCain; Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge; N.J. Gov. Christine Todd Whitman; Colin Powell; and Elizabeth Dole. [second tier] Ohio Rep. John Kasich; Calif. Rep. Chris Cox; Tenn. Sen. Fred Thompson; N.Y. Gov. George Pataki; Wisc. Gov. Tommy Thompson; Missouri Sen. John Ashcroft; Mich. Gov. John Engler; retiring Florida Sen. Connie Mack; former Defense Sec. Dick Cheney; and Okla. Gov. Frank Keating. Most likely: Ridge. Dark Horses: Kasich and Mack. Democratic possibilities: [first tier] Florida Sen. Bob Graham; Ill. Sen. Dick Durbin; Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein; Energy Sec. Bill Richardson; Ind. Sen. Evan Bayh (pronounced "buy"). [second tier] Bill Bradley; Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman; Calif. Gov. Gray Davis; Md. Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend; former Maine Sen. George Mitchell; retiring Neb. Sen. Bob Kerrey; N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt; Wisc. Sen. Russ Feingold; Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines; Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer. Most likely: Richardson. Dark Horses: Bayh and Kerrey. (To read a Slate "kausfiles" on why Richardson won't get Gore's blessing, click here.)


Miscellany

Mark Shields and Paul Gigot (PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer) argue over the merits of John McCain's admission that he lied on the South Carolina flag issue. Shields praises McCain's honesty but Gigot counters that "courage is doing something when it has the chance to hurt you." ... Self-Parody Dept.: Bob Novak (CG) accuses President Clinton of directly plotting the INS's moves with Fidel Castro. (Click here to read Chatterbox on the Castro-is-blackmailing-Clinton theory.) ... Pundit Question of the Week: Gloria Borger (FTN) asks INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, "So can you say definitively that [the INS agents] did not say, 'I'm going to blow your brains out'?"


Elián: Pro and Con

I'm certainly never happy to be in a situation where I'm on the same side of an issue with Fidel Castro, but that really is kind of irrelevant. The fact that Castro likes what the government did there doesn't disturb me. What we did, looking in isolation, is correct. All that Fidel Castro stands for is abhorrent to me. The decision, quite frankly, that Juan Miguel González is making here is a different one than I would make, I suspect, for my child. But it is his right to raise his boy where he wants to, and that is all we were trying to do.

--Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder (TW)

Today [Elián] was returned to the custody of Castro. It might not bother the American public, but what a shame that would be that they are willing to sit back and let a Special Forces-type operation with loaded submachine guns move in on a family that is law abiding--there was no court order or anything else these people were abusing--to take, at the point of a gun, a 6-year-old. This is not how we settle custody disputes in America.

--Kate O'Beirne (CG)

Last Word

What both of the parties would like is a Hispanic woman from a Great Lakes state with a big family and foreign policy experience.

--Michael Barone (TMG), on the perfect vice-presidential candidate

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