4.26.00
Elian's "Healing"

4.24.00
Why They Stand For Rocker

4.11.00
A Stinker of a Pulitzer

3.16.00
Spinning the Dark Side of Success

3.10.00
A Country for McCain:
Thailand

 

 
4/26/00 3:20 p.m.
Elian's "Healing"
...and the Two C's — Clinton and Castro.

The magisterial Mr. Will's exclusive NRO column.
 

o now the question is how the governments of the United States and Cuba can engineer Elian's "healing," to use the word of which the president is fond. As part of Elian's therapy (the therapeutic ethic is high in the saddle in Clinton's Washington and Castro's Cuba,) the ubiquitous "experts" are weighing in, and flying in. The State Department ponderers are pondering (can you not just imagine the rigor of the pondering being done?) how many of Castro's visa requests should be honored. Castro wants to send some of Elian's school chums and, of course, a psychiatrist or two or three or more. Which suggests a question. Two questions, as a matter of fact.

First, if Janet Reno's preferred pediatric expert — the one who assured her that Elian had to be "rescued" immediately because he was suffering "psychological abuse" at the hands of his relatives — can make a diagnosis, one that sends a SWAT team into motion, without ever having met with Elian, why can't Castro's "expert," like Reno's charlatan, make his diagnosis from long distance — from, say, Havana?

Second, what is the appropriate therapy for what presumably is called PTPVS — Post Traumatic Prayer Vigil Syndrome? The amazing Reno has told Senate questioners that among the things Elian was suffering while living with his relatives in Miami's Little Havana was the presence in his neighborhood of prayer vigils in his behalf.

 
 

Think a friend would want to read this? Send it along.

Your e-mail address:

Recipient's e-mail address:

 

Columns / Current Issue / Goldberg File / Nota Bene
Washington Bulletin
/ Subscribe / Ad Info / Home

National Review 215 Lexington Avenue New York, New York 10016 212-679-7330 Customer Service: 815-734-1232. Contact Us.