Text 10434, 146 rader
Skriven 2005-03-28 05:20:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Hypocrisy of the left
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http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/

Selective Restraint 
Liberals cheered when Janet Reno defied the courts to seize Elian 
Gonzalez. 

Monday, March 28, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST 

The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five 
years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts 
over someone who couldn't speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez.

In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions 
strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different 
outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed 
off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the 
case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore 
declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted the federal government to 
intervene in Elian Gonzalez's case went all the way, supporting a 
predawn armed federal raid on the morning before Easter to seize the 6-
year-old boy despite a federal appeals court's refusal to order his 
surrender.

Both cases were marked with hypocrisy and political posturing galore. 
Both times some conservative Republicans talked about issuing subpoenas 
to compel the person at the center of the case to appear before 
Congress; they swiftly backed down when public opinion failed to support 
their stunt. Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, argued that by 
opposing Elian's return to his father in communist Cuba, conservatives 
were abandoning the principle that "the state should not supersede the 
parents' wishes." In the case of Terri Schiavo, many conservatives who 
normally support spousal rights decided that Michael Schiavo's decision 
to abandon his marital vows while at the same time refusing to divorce 
his wife rendered him unfit to override the wishes of his wife's parents 
to have her cared for.

But liberals have gotten off easy for some of the somersaulting 
arguments they have made on behalf of judicial independence and states' 
rights to justify their position that Terri Schiavo should not be saved. 
Many made the opposite arguments in the Elian Gonzalez case.





Elian was plucked from the ocean off the coast of Florida on 
Thanksgiving Day 1999. after his mother died in an ill-fated attempt to 
bring him to freedom. Before he became a political football and Fidel 
Castro demanded his return, the Immigration and Naturalization Service 
granted him immigration "parole," which gave him the right to live in 
the U.S. for one year until his status was determined. Because Elian was 
underage, his fate would therefore be decided by local family courts. On 
Dec. 1, the INS issued a statement saying, "Although the INS has no role 
in the family custody decision process, we have discussed the case with 
the State of Florida officials who have confirmed that the issue of 
legal custody must be decided by its state court."
Then the Clinton administration reversed course after protests from the 
Castro regime reached a fever pitch. On Dec. 9, the INS declared its 
previous position "a mistake" and said that state courts would not have 
jurisdiction in Elian's case. They claimed that because Elain was taken 
directly to a hospital he was therefore never formally paroled into the 
U.S.--even though he was then turned over to his Miami relatives rather 
than the INS. "Technically, he was not paroled in the usual sense," said 
a Justice Department spokesman. But she could come up with no previous 
case in which a Cuban refugee had had his parole revoked and then had 
the INS move to return him to Cuba. 

But it quickly became clear that was the INS's intent. Over the 
Christmas holidays the agency dispatched agents to Cuba to interview 
Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. After the interview, Mr. Gonzalez 
told reporters the agents and an accompanying U.S. diplomat had assured 
him Elian would be returned. The Clinton administration disputed those 
statements, although one of the government officials later privately 
acknowledged they had been made. Nonetheless, INS bureaucrats in 
Washington quickly determined that a man who had abandoned Elian and his 
mom for another woman was a "fit parent" who could "properly care for 
the child in Cuba." No public consideration was given to the fact that 
his father, a member of the Communist Party, might have been coerced.

If a state court had been allowed to hear the custody case, INS 
officials would not have been able to testify as to what Mr. Gonzalez 
told them to support his claim because it would have been hearsay. He 
would have had to come to the U.S. to testify on his own, subject to 
cross-examination. Even if the state court had granted him custody, it 
would have had to decide whether it was in the child's best interest to 
be returned to Cuba. 

That's what Judge Rosa Rodriguez of Florida Family Court, complying with 
the original INS ruling, tried to do when she ruled in early January 
2000 that her court had jurisdiction over the boy and gave Elian's great-
uncle legal authority to represent him. Her order contravened an INS 
ruling that only Elian's father could speak for the boy and that he 
should be immediately returned to Cuba. Attorney General Janet Reno than 
promptly declared that Judge Rodriguez's ruling had "no force or 
effect." At the same time, INS officials assured reporters that under no 
circumstances did they intend to seize Elian by force.

The stalemate continued for another three months. On Thursday, April 20, 
the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals--the same court that rejected the 
pleas of Terri Schiavo's parents last week--turned down the Justice 
Department's request to order Elian removed from the home of his Miami 
relatives. Moreover, the court expressed serious doubts about the 
Justice Department's reading of both the law and its own regulations, 
adding that Elian had made a "substantial case on the merits" of his 
claim. It further established a record that Elain, "although a young 
child, has expressed a wish that he not be returned to Cuba."

The Reno Justice Department acted the next day to short-circuit a legal 
process that was clearly going against it. On Good Friday evening, after 
all courts had closed for the day, the department obtained a "search" 
warrant from a night-duty magistrate who was not familiar with the case, 
submitting a supporting affidavit that seriously distorted the facts. 
Armed with that dubious warrant, the INS's helmeted officers, assault 
rifles at the ready, burst into the home of Elian's relatives and 
snatched the screaming boy from a bedroom closet. Many local bystanders 
were tear-gassed even though they did nothing to block the raid. Elian 
was quickly returned to Cuba; because he was never able to meet with his 
lawyers a scheduled May 11 asylum hearing on his case in Atlanta became 
moot.

Of course, there are differences between the Gonzalez and Schiavo cases. 
But clearly many of the people who approved of dramatic federal 
intervention to return Elian to Cuba took a completely different tack 
when it came to the argument over saving Terri Schiavo. Rep. Frank makes 
a compelling argument that Congress took an extraordinary step when it 
met in special session to create a procedure whereby the federal courts 
could decide whether Ms. Schiavo's rights were being violated. He may 
have a point when he accuses Republicans of "trying to command judicial 
activism and dictate outcomes when they don't like" rulings. But where 
were Mr. Frank and other liberals when the Clinton administration 
decided to sidestep a federal appeals court and order an armed raid 
against Elian Gonzalez? While Mr. Frank allowed that the use of assault 
rifles in the Elian raid was "excessive" and "frightening," he also 
defended the Justice Department's view that "of course [agents] had to 
use force."

According to some reports, Gov. Jeb Bush considered seizing Mrs. 
Schiavo, ā la Elian, and taking her to a hospital so she could be fed. 
But he did not do so. "I've consistently said that I can't go beyond 
what my powers are, and I'm not going to do it," the governor says. 
Janet Reno and the Clinton administration showed no such restraint when 
it came to Elian Gonzalez.


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