3.31.00
Elian, Still in the Middle of the Ocean

3.31.00
The Clintonization of America

3.30.00
A Real Shipwreck

3.29.00
The Dead Baby Thing is So Over

3.29.00
Are Gun Locks Like Aspirin Caps?

3.28.00
Putin Together A Government

3.27.00
The Dangers of Mandatory Gun Locks

3.24.00
What Hath Ward Wrought?

3.24.00
Leave E-commerce Alone

3.24.00
E-mailgate

3.23.00
Senator, You're No Ronald Reagan

3.23.00
Against Microsoft: A Primer For Conservatives

3.22.00
Kessler Control

an there be anyone so cold of heart as not to have fallen in love with the first sight of Elián Gonzalez? What must have been the feeling of those who found him floating around on that inner tube in the waters off Fort Lauderdale — a baby, really, sunburned, dehydrated, in terror or beyond it, and as beautiful as the day is long? Why, of course, that such a one must be cherished and cosseted and kept safe forever.

The question is, would he otherwise have become the poster-child for a by-now old and rapidly attenuating political war between Castro and the Cuban emigrants now so safely established in Florida? That old battle is becoming ever more meaningless not because the anti-Castro passions of the Miami emigrés have softened but because it is now clear that Castro will remain in office continuing to immiserate his people until he dies while few of the Miami Cubans can any longer be dreaming of returning to Havana to catch the falling flag.

But little Elián has turned out to be the perfect object for one last show of power on both sides: because the press in its loathsome way has fallen in love with him and the rest of us find ourselves willy-nilly entangled in the question of what ought to become of him. It occurs to me that what damage being abandoned in the middle of the ocean has not done to him Castro might be doing him now. For the sake of the father who loves him and has the natural right to bring him up? Please don’t make me laugh: After all these years and all the suffering he has brought down upon his people, do we not know enough about him and his motives yet? Were he a man to be so concerned with the future of little orphaned boys, might he not have found it in himself over the years to let some of the fathers languishing in his prisons go? And as for Elián’s father, can any of us say he knows, or may ever know, what that man really wants for his son?

Whatever is the answer, for God’s sake, the child is here, being looked after lovingly by a young woman to whom he has already attached himself and with loving relatives all around. Many American-born children should only be so lucky. Those who are demanding to have him sent back, including, alas, the United States government, clearly care more about Castro’s well-being than about his. Any talk on their part about concern for “family values” is under present conditions either totally irrelevant or pure cant.

But I myself cannot help being plagued by yet another question: Suppose Elián had been a fat and pimply 13-year-old? What then? How would Diane Sawyer have felt? How would any of us?

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