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Fair question - If I get into an irreconsilable family dispute, then to whome do I sanction the authority to ultimately resolve that dispute. THAT becomes the question. The answer doesnt depend on whether the name or institution in question is identified as "democrat" or "republican" The answers arent easy, and in fact I dont propose to be able to provide them in a one evening forum discussion. But family IS an issue - and it is the reason that just as I can condemn Waco and Ruby Ridge I can condone that some authority had to step in on behalf of Elian's legal guardian - the fact that international relations between two conflicting regimes were also involved of course complicatiung the situation further. The simplest START to an answer is to realize that my government shouldnt infuse me with notions of which political systems are right and which are wrong - that my beliefs shouldnt be shaped by one of those party choices both of which have agendas far beyond the individual freedoms of the citizenry .. that all these things should instead come from my mind and my thought, as shaped by my family and the culture of which I am a part ....... Freedom is a difficult thing my friend, the hardest thing imagineable in many ways

Thanks for the comments regarding the Elian situation. As a matter of record, Elian's case was still before the courts. Reno didn't have the need or the right to interrupt the judicial process.

Had all judicial processes been exhausted, the asylum denied and custody granted to Elian's natural father, it would have then been appropriate to take the child into custody. The process to effect that effort would have involved the local police department and the office of child protective services. Only as a last result should Reno have ever considered taking that child by force the way she did.

It's my opinion that she acted outside the law.

I have had a big problem with Bush writing off the past sins of the Clintons. Reno fits right in there. In many ways I support Bush, but in my opinion this was major oversight. The new justice department could have examined the deeds of their predicessors. This being said, I can see the need for Bush to move on, in order to enact his own agenda and not be tied up for four years prosecuting Clinton and his crime family.

Perhaps the only aspect of this that I cannot swallow in the long run, is Bush's decision to change the way Presidential Papers are handled. To give Clinton veto powers over access to his Presidential Paper is positively unacceptable. And in the long run it besmirches his own charcacter and even that of his father, the possible focus of his action.

Regardless of whether one believes that Janet Reno did the right thing or not, it is entirely possible that had Reno not sent in the stormtrooper to take Elian, Florida might have gone to Gore in the Presidential election.

The end of the Elian Gonzales story has not yet been written, so while for some (but not me), Elian's ending up back in Cuba may seem to have been a travesty, it may only turn out in the end to have been a temporary setback.