Dear Jerry,

How now, Mercutio? I bop over to Bush Watch to see what you've done with your cute little picture, and discover that I'm sandwiched in between Marisleysis Gonzalez and Camille Paglia. [See below.] I have never in my life felt more culturally in tune with my namesake, that virginal innocent whom Whoopi Goldberg once described as "the whitest woman in America." Que sera, sera.

There's something about Camille Paglia calling Marisleysis Gonzalez a "hysterical narcissist" that's like, well, an Italian calling a Cuban "Latin." On the one hand, Paglia seems to think that Janet Reno just isn't butch enough, like Paglia's favorite steel magnolia Margaret Thatcher. On the other, she thinks the Justice Department should have sent the Avon ladies in first to break the ice a little, before calling in "troops" for backup. To top it off, she believes that it all has something to do with "nature." Doesn't that make you want to break into a rousing chorus of "The Circle of Life"? Hakuna metata, Camille.

This whole Elian thing has gotten way too Disney for me. I'm heading off to the backyard with a coconut daquiri and a copy of "One Hundred Years of Solitude." If you hear somebody humming "Guantanamera," it's either me or Juan Gonzalez. Con los pobres de la tierra.. --Doris

Dear Doris,

Sorry I surprised you, Juliet. It's just that I hate to see all your good jokes get lost in our e-mails, so I spur-of-the-moment decided to use one as a lead-in to the non-tubercular Camille. Another Bush Watcher had this to say about Ms. Paglia, sometimes known as the lesbian Dr. Laura: "I absolutely loath Paglia, you don't know how it galled me to send you her article from Salon this morning. I've known Paglia for a longgggg time, I think she's generally out of her mind!" Now that's how integrity works with our journalism here at Bush Watch. The guy hates her guts; yet, he doesn't want to leave us out of the loop. Now that's dedication. But that's the kind of fair-minded folks we are at Bush Watch. (Oops. my shoulder joint's stuck, patting myself on the back.)

As for the image, itself, which was crafted by our own Wizard of Whimsey, it was also a spur-of-the-moment thing, but it seems to have stimulated an Internet deluge of similar images on the same theme. Frankly, I haven't seen any on the Wizard's quality level. (Compare here.) Another image, this one making the rounds of the conservative sites, is one of Reno's face pasted over the face of the soldier in "the photo." Really fooled me! (Yawn...)--Jerry

Hey, let's talk about the weather! I was looking at the NYT picture under the fold this morning of Rudy standing next to his wax double outside a wax museum that opened near Times Square yesterday. Picking my daughter up from school this afternoon with the temp hitting 90 and an ozone warning in effect for Austin (the air has been defined as "unhealthy" today in Houston), I pictured Rudy melting in the heat if the wax museum opening were in Texas. The wax dummy would have fared even worse. Of course, Rudy's boiling anyway, with his "independent" wife starring in "The Vagina Monologues" at a New York theater. Which, I guess, brings us back to Camille Paglia. --Jerry

"Previously, "Reno humiliated herself and her office by flying to Miami to dignify that creep Lázaro with a face-to-face appeal -- as if he were the pope. And her battle plans stank. Though I support the pre-dawn raid, I think there should first have been a calm, pro forma attempt to pick up the boy in daylight hours, ideally by a small cadre of unarmed female agents in street clothes. Had they been rebuffed, the troops should then have been marshaled for a surprise assault.

"Like the rest of my Italian-American family, I find pathetically laughable Reno's notion that the warring González relatives could ever (then or now) sit down in a room and "come together as a family" to resolve their differences. The touchy-feely "Oprah" style of therapeutic schmoozing is light-years removed from the smoking scorched earth of the vengeful, honor-driven Latin temperament....But please, ye gods, spare us the further manipulations of Republican politicians, who want to drag the damned thing out through the election season." --Camille Paglia, image by Wizard of Whimsy.

Described by the NYT Sunday as using "harsh language laced with outrage," George W. Bush put his foot in his mouth over the Elian matter, indicating that if he were to be president his emotions might overshadow his good sense in moments of crisis. Commenting upon Attorney-General Janet Reno's decision to release child hostage Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives, Bush said, "Ours is a nation of laws, not guns. Custody disputes are resolved in the calm of a courtroom, not in the terror of middle of the night raids." This morning Michael Brus (see below) noted, "on Fox News Sunday, both Brit Hume and Gov. Frank Keating, R-Okla., concede that the government had the legal right to transfer custody." This was done nearly two weeks ago by the INS, a branch of the Justic Department, from Lazaro Gonzalez to Elian's father, Miguel Gonzalez. At that time Lazaro was asked to return Elian, but he refused, stating that the feds would have to come and get the child, and promising no resistence. Yet, according to George Stephanopoulos yesterday, Marisleysis Gonzalez, Elian's primary Miami caregiver and daughter of Lazaro, was quoted as saying she couldn't guarantee the safety of the federal agents in the Gonzalez house because some in the house at any given time may have weapons. Ironically, of all of our governors, Bush backs one of the most liberal gun policies in the U.S., having signed a bill allowing Texans to carry concealed handguns, even into churches. Now that Bush has helped to equip our citizens with guns, calling the resulting bloodsheds a problem of "character," he wants our federal agents to attempt to remove a child hostage from a hostile environment without visible means of self-protection . And he accuses Gore of pandering to Miami Cuban-Americans?

Bush also said, ""I am profoundly saddened and troubled that the administration was not able to negotiate a resolution, and instead decided to use force to take a little boy from the place he calls home in the middle of the night." Janet Reno feels the same as Mr. Bush. This has been amply documented. However, Bush said elsewhere, "It breaks my heart to know there was an agreement that was close to being made," implying that the use of force could have been avoided by Janet Reno. This is simply not true. According to Reno, "Every time we thought we had achieved what we wanted, it wasn't enough," she said. "It was just one step after another in which they moved the goalpost." The AP reported the nuts and bolts of the negotiations: "Specifically, the proposal called for Elian, his father and the two Miami relatives who have been the boy's chief caregivers - Lazaro Gonzalez and his daughter, Marisleysis - to move to one of two foundation-owned conference centers near Washington - either Wye Plantation, a center on Maryland's Eastern shore that has been used for Mideast peace conferences, or Airlie House near Warrenton, Va., according to a government official, who requested anonymity. The plan called for formal custody to transfer immediately from the Miami relatives to the boy's Cuban father - something the relatives have refused to accept." It appears that the strategy of the Miami family is to stall for time. If Elian is still in the U.S. by next Thanksgiving, he could be considered a de-facto resident and it would be argued that he then would be out of INS hands. That's one reason Elion's father was anxious to get him back and get on with the court actions, none of which have to do with custody of the child. This is a point that Bush has seemed to miss. As the attorney for Elian's father put it, "We agreed to virtually all the demands contained in the attorney general's proposal, but we would not compromise on the most critical issue of custody." The armed force resolution came about because it became clear that the Miami family was negotiating in bad faith and they were moving into the third week of flaunting a direct federal government order to release the child. Still, Bush accuses Gore of pandering to Miami Cuban -Americans.

Finally, Bush on "the photo":"The chilling picture of a little boy being removed from his home at gunpoint defies the values of America and is not an image a freedom-loving nation wants to show the world." Agreed, without any context, it's not an image we want to show the world. In context, it is. The photo represents how far we're willing to go to follow the rule of law, and how much slack we're willing to give to our citizens who question it. Those federal agents would not have been in any citizen's house if the rule of law had promptly been followed. Given the actual circumstances, the photo is pretty benign, given what would have happened much sooner in most other countries. Polls taken show that American citizens feel pretty much the same way, and there's no reason to believe that unbiased foreigners with the facts wouldn't feel the same. Bush's problem here is that he confuses appearance with reality. This is understandable, given his campaign, which is mostly surface words and staged pictures that reflect an image of himself that doesn't exist in reality. On my way to Easter dinner at the Texas Chili Parlor, I drove past the rear driveway of the Governor's Mansion around 7 yesterday evening . It looked like Dubya was fixin' to go somewhere. Police cars were on every corner of the adjoining streets, cops with their hands resting on their guns, using their open driver's-side doors as shields as they stood behind them. Through the gated circular driveway I saw an agent with his right hand inside his blue blazer, standing on a raised, grassy island in the middle of the driveway, looking carefully out at me as I drove by. Nothing much was going on, really. Just business as usual. Just doin' the job. Yet, out of context, I could have taken some pictures that might not have been images "a freedom-loving nation wants to show the world." Bush needs to tone down his inflammatory rhetoric. It's Bush who's pandering to Miami Cuban-Americans. As Sunday's Washington Post editorial describes his comments made after the fact of the Elion rescue, Bush "flee[s] responsibility in pursuit of votes." --Politex, 4/24/00

"House Republican Whip Tom DeLay...declared the Elián case to be a custody battle just like "what I have been involved in with my wife." That '92 platform failed to explain that a great-uncle has the same "parental authority" as a mother or father. Perhaps most sublimely, there was Newt Gingrich....After Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Miami, and therefore not guilty on grounds of constituents' insanity) stated that the courts had given "little Elián" the right to asylum, Gingrich forgot to remind her that "Republicans trust parents and believe that they, not courts and lawyers, know what is best for their children." Instead, he criticized Janet Reno's timing on the adorable grounds that "This is a time for Easter egg hunts. This is a time for the Easter bunny."

"George W. Bush also seems to believe in the Easter bunny. He said he was "profoundly saddened and troubled that the administration was not able to negotiate a resolution and instead decided to use force." It would be good to know how much longer than five months President W. would be willing to negotiate and whether he plans to conduct many negotiations by giving up all his leverage in advance. It used to be that Republicans had a better handle on this sort of thing." --Michael Kinsley

MARISLEYSIS, BUSH, AND DRUG BUSTS "The responsibility for [the Elian] media insanity lies with the Miami Relatives.... Now that Elián's in seclusion with his father, it's obvious they're a low-minded bunch of anti-Castro Cuban exiles who exploited the kid for their own purposes. Marisleysis González may be a sex symbol in Cuba, but I think she's a bad actor in every sense of the word (especially compared with Elián, who comes out of this looking like Macaulay Culkin). On Saturday morning after the raid, the Washington Post reported that she "ran outside and fell to the ground in tears." Then she flew to D.C. and gave a press conference, again sobbing uncontrollably, waving the money shot and saying things like "There was no guns in that house." Let's face it, she's a publicity-seeking phony, and her tears are those of a woman who realizes her 15 minutes are up....It's only a matter of weeks before the right-wing conspiracy gets her a makeover and turns her into Paula Jones.

"... for a real show of hypocrisy, check out the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal's editorials and Op-Eds today, in which they use the money shot to tar the entire Clinton administration, including Hillary and Al Gore. Post columnist Dick Morris advances the notion that Bill Clinton is in the pocket of Fidel Castro, who has been threatening to dump another boatload of refugees before the election cycle is out. And the Journal's lead editorial suggests that Elián was drugged on the flight to Washington, in preparation for the Cuban psychiatrists who will be slipping into America to brainwash him. (In her backup Op-Ed, Peggy Noonan reflects, "Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.")

"Meanwhile, conservatives are calling for congressional hearings to investigate the raid. If the Republican Party [and George W. Bush] were really bothered by unjustified searches and seizures, they would hold hearings about the fact that heavily armed predawn raids of private homes, based on flimsy search warrants that turn up after the fact, are conducted every day in the name of the drug war, often against defenseless blacks and Hispanics." --Cynthia Cotts

"Reno bent over backward to satisfy the demands of the boy's Florida relatives. She did this because the Cuban expatriate community is politically powerful; because she didn't want a replay of the Waco siege of 1993; because she is from Miami and believed she could negotiate with the people there. Of course, what she and the government didn't realize was that prolonging the situation would worsen it. Still, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how long she waited, no matter how much patience she showed, she was stiffed by the Miami family. Those who think she should have been ready to wait another five months seem to have forgotten the solemn warning of the eminent pediatrician who warned only a few days ago that Elian was "in a state of imminent danger to his physical and emotional well-being in a home that I consider to be psychologically abusive."

"Moreover, the federal agents were more than justified in carrying weapons in their rescue mission. The atmosphere around the Gonzalez home in Miami was tense and growing more so. Lazaro Gonzalez had frequently and explicitly warned that he would never allow Elian to be taken by federal marshals. It would have been irresponsible to ignore that warning. And had the agents entered the home in broad daylight, with many more supporters on hand, who knows what danger awaited them, the child and demonstrators?

"Argue about tactics, but the federal agents deserve far better than they received from politicians who sought to win political points from this drama. Two GOP leaders, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), compared these agents to Fidel Castro's soldiers and police. Are these two federal officials saying that the law and the rulings of the Immigration and Naturalization Service should have been indefinitely ignored?" --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"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 cautions 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 Elian 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 Elian 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 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." [And talking of doctoring, the AP photos show the feds leaving with Elian, the bedroom door on its hinges and in one piece. The photos taken four hours later under the direction of Marisleysis and the rest of the Gonzalez family show that same door off its hinges in two pieces. jp] --Michael Brus, 4/24/00

MEDIA WATCH: CNN CROPS "THE PHOTO." "In the early hours of the television coverage [of the Elian seizure] at least one network, CNN, seemed to have cropped the photograph so that Mr. Dalrymple was not visible, making it look as if the federal agent was facing only Elián. Later, the full photograph was shown. A spokeswoman for CNN said there "was no editorial decision" to crop the man out of the picture." NYT 4/23/00. (see photo below)

MEDIA WATCH I was awakened at around 5:15 ET and told Elian had been taken from his uncle's Miami home by the feds. The CNN reporter said the crowd numbered around 50. Those who were there reported the feds used pepper spray, not tear gas, to keep the crowd back Some on the scene had attempted to physically prevent the raid from happening. Some tried to go past the feds into the house, Carlos Gonzalez and others tried to form a human chain in front of the dwelling, in spite of the family's previous promise that the feds would be allowed to take Elian without any physical resistence, if it came to that. Previous to the federal vans coming on the scene, a few local cops took the barricades down, as if to prepare the way for the feds. EMS trucks were delayed on the scene because, it was reported, the Miami police had cordoned off the neighborhood as the feds were moving in. While a few younger males moved through the swelling crowd, attempting to stir it up, the general response was emotional but with few physical incidents. After the feds left with Elian and with few local police on the immediate scene, bystanders took out their anger on the media, both physically (pushing and shoving, flipping the bird) and verbally ("fuck you!"). One CNN reporter who was at a desk in Atlanta was cautioned by another when she used the word "brutality" to describe the action of the feds. Based on what we have heard and seen so far, the word was ill-chosen. --Politex

ABOUT THE PHOTO "Associated Press photos taken during the seizure showed one of the fishermen who rescued Elian at sea five months ago backed into a closet, clutching the boy, as an agent pointing his weapon was about to take him. Asked about the photo, Reno said the gun "was pointed to the side" and the agent's "finger was not on the trigger.'" A CNN reporter also said the agent's outstretched left arm is part of the warning but non-combative stance taught during training. According to the NYT, Elian "was being hidden in a bedroom closet by his great-aunt and Donato Dalrymple, one of the fishermen who rescued him on Thanksgiving Day. In the bedroom, an agent in green riot gear and goggles pointed an automatic rifle at Dalrymple holding the frightened child, an image captured by an Associated Press photographer and broadcast around the world. Agents then took Elian out of Dalrymple's arms." According to Dalrymple, "agents told him "give me the boy or I'll shoot you." "They took this kid like a hostage in the nighttime," he said." According to "the boy's cousin Marisleysis Gonzalez,... "They broke the rear window and put a gun to Elian's head."

Updated Texas Rankings Under Bush: 1st in Children without Health Insurance %...1st in Toxic Air Releases...1st in Smog Days (Houston)...1st in poorest counties(3)...3rd in Hunger %...5th in Highest Teen Birth Rate...41st in Breast Cancer Screenings...45th in Mothers Receiving Pre-Natal Care...46th in Public Libraries and Branches...46th in High School Completion Rate...46th in Water Resources Protection...47th in Delivery of Social Services...48th in Literacy...48th in Per Capita Funding for Public Health...48 in Best Place to Raise Children (29th before Bush)*...48th in Spending for Parks and Recreation...48th in Spending for the Arts...49th in Spending for the Environment...50th in Women with Health Insurance...50th in Teachers' Salaries plus Benefits... *Children's Rights Council. further documentation Only one accredited child-care center exists for every 2,637 children. A fourth of children still are not immunized by age 2. --Texas Freedom Network. welcome...comment...bulletin board Bush Watch is a non-advocacy site paid for by Politex, a non-affiliated U.S. citizen. Editorial Policy: All entries are dated and documented as needed. Text (c) Politex. Permission of author required for reprinting. Duration of working link not under our control. Updated daily at various times. Send all e-mail to Politex. Bush Watch has not reviewed all of the sites linked to our site and is not responsible for the content of any off-site pages or any other sites linked to our site. Your linking to any other off-site pages or other sites from our site is at your own risk. links