| ||||||
|
Arts & Entertainment Books Comics Health & Body Media Mothers Who Think  NewsPeople Politics2000 Technology - Free Software Travel & Food  Columnists
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Also Today For a full list of today's Salon News stories, go to the
News home page. - - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon - - - - - - - - - - - - Salon Columnists - - - - - - - - - - - - Recently in Salon News Feature Feature Feature Feature Feature - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
The Elián metaphor | page 1, 2
The editorialists at the New York Times have sounded confused, too. For
many weeks the Times has urged the Clinton administration to resolve the
mess in Miami and send Elián home. Just the other day columnist Maureen
Dowd, who often reflects the consensus of the paper's editorial team,
mocked the attorney general's supposed dithering. Finally, having attempted
for weeks to negotiate a settlement, Reno relied upon the cool
professionalism of INS and Border Patrol officers to end a standoff that had
come to resemble a hostage situation. Since Saturday's predawn raid,
however, the Times editors have scolded Reno harshly for her "precipitous"
action. Meanwhile, Dowd's fellow pundit William Safire appears to have suffered a
relapse of what can only be called a bad case of Cold War paranoia. Riffling
through a moldy John Birch Society stylebook, Safire has darkly hinted that
the famous photograph of a joyful Elián reunited with his father is Commie
propaganda, put out by the Clinton White House and its allies in the
"left-wing" Protestant churches. The agitated columnist evidently agrees with
Elián's cousin Marisleysis González, the self-appointed "surrogate mother,"
who insists that the famous picture of father and son cannot possibly show
"the real Elián." (So would it be the alien Elián, perhaps?)
Joe Conason Joe Conason's column appears in Salon News every other Tuesday.
When calmer voices can be heard, they will declare that Reno acted properly and wisely to uphold the father's right to rejoin his child. They will decry the unreasonable conditions that the González family in Miami tried to force on a man who, at their insistence, had journeyed to the United States from Cuba in the expectation of good faith from his estranged relatives. They will note that Elián was being manipulated and traumatized by schemers who attempted to alienate him from his own father. They will point out that the situation in Miami was becoming more, not less, dangerous, both to the child and to the surrounding community, as the exile leadership demanded an ideological victory. What those more restrained voices should point out as well is that if we
really cared about all the children of Cuba, and not just a cute little refugee
boy, we would finally end the inhumane embargo and diplomatic stalemate
that have only served the interests of Castro and his aging enemies -- while
driving families like Elián's and American democracy itself, over and over
again, to the very edge of lunacy.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - Search Salon | |||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
