Pause to remember: Two Easter Eves ago, Elian was seized as picture of Jesus was trampled.

Cato Foundation website ^ | April 24, 2000 | Deroy Murdock

[laureldrive]

Question:

1) What happened to the AP photos of the feds' thuggery inside the house? Does the AP ordinarily suppress its own photos?

2) Do you believe as I do that it's Elian who got W elected? The Cubans had been voting less Republican in recent years - but that stopped in 2000, when they turned out big for Bush, and helped him win Florida by a whisker. 3) Do you believe with Tom DeLay that Elian had the hand of God on him, from the moment the dolphins came to his aid in the sea - - - - and perhaps up to this very point in time? 4) Do you believe Reno, Clinton and the media will ever be held to account for getting Elian keelhauled back to Castro? 5) Why didn't Elian's defenders place him, at least while the heat was on, with a gay couple in Miami? The media and Clinton would have immediately dropped their insistence that he be shipped back to Castro.

[laureldrive]

Why didn't Elian's defenders place him, at least while the heat was on, with a gay couple in Miami? The media and Clinton would have immediately dropped their insistence that he be shipped back to Castro.

[laureldrive]

Why didn't Elian's defenders place him with a GAY COUPLE in Miami? The media and Clinton would have immediately dropped their insistence that he be shipped back to Castro.

[laureldrive]

Kidnapping this kid before dawn on EASTER was a sacrilige - - was it intentional? Did they pick the date to spit on the Holy Day?

[BornOnTheFourth]

Thanks for the reminder. I wouldn't be surprised if they picked the Easter weekend on purpose. Of course, this coming from an administration who held Ramadan with more honor...

I will NEVER forget waking up and seeing the images of Elian's abduction. I still remember the ice-cold feeling of dread and anger.

An NBC cameraman said federal gunmen kicked him in the stomach, hit his sound man with a rifle butt and yelled, "Don't move or we'll shoot."

I'm still amazed that the press didn't make a bigger deal of this incident. That just goes to show how biased they are--can't speak out against Clinton--noooooooo, can't have that!

[laureldrive]

Thank you, Florida Cubans, for defeating Gore.

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

One of the many days of SHAME brought to us by the corrupt, criminal, Communist Clintonista Reign of terror!

[ResistorSister]

Does the AP ordinarily suppress its own photos?

They do not ordinarily suppress photos...but they only leave them online for awhile.

If you see one that you want to keep...make sure to save it.

[laureldrive]

I will NEVER forget waking up and seeing the images of Elian's abduction. I still remember the ice-cold feeling of dread and anger.

These were my feelings exactly. Ruined Easter for me - and a number of days after.

[laureldrive]

Have you heard MICHAEL SAVAGE'S riff where he imitates a Nazi radio broadcast boasting about the "HEROIC" raid on Elian's home, and saluting Janet Reno as a hero of the Fatherland?

[Freedom'sWorthIt]

"Thank you, Florida Cubans, for defeating Gore."

Amen! Election 2000 was God's revenge against Clinton/Gore - probably on behalf of little Elian! May God keep him safe until one day he can life in Freedom!

[AnnaZ]

 

19 March 2002

 

On the eve of the two-year anniversary of Elian's seizure at gunpoint by INS

thugs who ought to have been arresting Islamic terrorists, the Washington

Post published this pathetic follow-up, which, despite the reporter's

fundamental, blind acceptance of Elian's return to tyranny, is worth

reading:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60888-2002Mar8.html

 

[those inclined should write to letters@washpost.com and

ombudsman@washpost.com]

 

---

 

19 March 2002

 

To: Eugene Robinson, Assistant Managing Editor, Washington Post

From: Scott Holleran

Subject: Looking for Eilan

cc: Letters

 

Dear Mr. Robinson:

 

I read your story, Looking for Elian, with interest; the headline caught

my eye since not one reporter has laid his eyes on an unaccompanied Elian

since he was seized by the INS in a pre-dawn military raid two years ago.

From the beginning, I knew that finding Elian was unlikely, because he

lives in a communist dictatorship where there's no such thing as freedom of

the press, which is why those of us who think communism constitutes child

abuse opposed sending him back to that hell you described.

 

I found your story well-written and often involving -- until the end,

when you write: "The Cuban government has kept journalists away from [Elian

and his Cuba family], and the truth is that this is a good thing."

 

Good --- for whom? For Elian Gonzalez, who is shut off from freedom? For

the press, which is shut off from reporting? Perhaps you mean it's good for

the communist regime, which must repress dissent in order to survive.

Any reporter who regards being completely cut off from the media and

from any independent evaluation as good for any human being, especially a

child, should never should be sent to Cuba, let alone be assigned a story

about a child's life in Cuba.

 

Your viewpoint makes the whole premise of looking for Elian a lie -- why

bother looking for one who, according to you, will be harmed by your

reporting?

 

Knowing the history of the Soviet Union and China and that you're in the

grip of Castro, did it really never dawn on you that Elian might be shut off

from the free world because Cuba's totalitarian regime doesn't want you to

know how he lives? Are you seriously willing to take the word of a

second-rate bureaucrat mouthing Havana's dictates as the final arbiter on

the fate of a child whose life you are assigned to chronicle? Is that all it

takes to shoo the Washington Post away from following up on the biggest

story of 2000 --- a few words from a heel-clicking communist?

 

If so, the Post applies a higher standard to terrorists at Guantanomo

Bay than to a child whose mother died to bring him to America. What a

twisted hierarchy of values.

 

You refer without attribution to "a constant stream" of reporters from

whom Elian presumably must be protected, as if a reporter is more dangerous

than that thug who sure made an impression on *you*, a grown man. And that

thug is a daily presence in Elian's life, not a passing moment of danger in

an assistant managing editor's notes.

 

Journalism is the relentless pursuit of truth; you ostensibly went to

find Elian Gonzalez and, being told by threat of force that you are not

welcome, you abandoned that journey and blindly accepted the ideas of those

who refused you.

 

Looking for Elian? You weren't looking for Elian. The article is written

as if you were looking for vindication of a nation that, in one of its

darkest moments, forcibly returned a child refugee from communism *to*

communism.

 

If you were looking for such vindication--or at least moral

neutrality--you sure came away empty-handed. When the INS should have been

arresting Islamic terrorists, they were forcing a child at gunpoint to live

in tyranny. Now even the mighty Washington Post can't get a lousy photograph

to prove he exists, let alone report how he lives.

 

This nation ought to be ashamed of turning its back on that child -- and

on our founding principle of inalienable individual rights -- and your

half-hearted, failed attempt to find him demonstrates why.

 

Sincerely,

Scott Holleran

--

 

 

 

SCOTT HOLLERAN

sholleran@earthlink.net

 

 

 

 

© Copyright 2001, 2002 Scott Holleran

All rights reserved.

[Zathras]

After completing the www.frontsight.com defensive handgun class, I learned that the LE and military is trained to keep your finger OFF the trigger.

I guess "Shake and Bake" didn't take that class.

[BornOnTheFourth]

I was so furious that I called the Janet Reno's office. When they answered "Attorney General's Office." I asked them if it was the Attorney General's office of the United States because what I saw on TV certainly couldn't happen in the US! Her response: "I'm just the receptionist."

B@astards.

[green team 1999]

[laureldrive]

Cuban-Americans seem to be the Hispanics whom its permitte to belittle and oppress (at least if they're not pro-Castro Cubans).

[green team 1999]

"i told al to dump the kid"

[laureldrive]

Why didn't Elian's defenders place him with a GAY COUPLE in Miami? The media and Clinton would have immediately dropped their insistence that he be shipped back to Castro.

This one deserves a bump, if I say so myself.

[laureldrive]

"Wielding machine guns, the body-armor-clad agents knocked over a picture of Jesus Christ and a statue of the Virgin Mary on Easter Eve. "

Pilate's strongmen might have approved.