Not if youre a Cuban American, says the Left.
By Rich Lowry, NR Editor. National Review, April 14
As the crowds built in Miami yesterday, we heard more talk from the Elián-deporters of the "rule of law," a phrase that liberals scorned from the lips of Henry Hyde, but now is back in style. In the medias account, the lawless fanatics in Miami are set against an
administration doing its solemn duty to uphold the laws of this great land. This is the usual toxic mix of falsehood and hypocrisy that has characterized liberal attitudes in the Elián case from the beginning.
First, the hypocrisy: Since when are liberals so unsympathetic to civil disobedience? "No justice, no peace," apparently is a phrase appropriate only to race hustlers attacking the police in New York City. Let an anti-Communist, let alone a Cuban American anti-Communist, dare say it
and suddenly it represents a threat to the American way of life. Are all the Elián-deporters now tossing out their dog-eared copies of Martin Luther Kings letter from a Birmingham jail? Or are they just adding a section about how all the arguments in it apply only when convenient to Al
Sharpton?
Im obviously no fan of civil disobedience, or civil unrest may there be no bricks thrown in Miami. But it is entirely appropriate for Cuban Americans to take to the streets to pray and to chant and to scream, in an effort to demonstrate the depth of their passion on the subject and
try to sway Janet Reno. Because Reno is not simply enforcing the rules; she is responding to political pressure from Castro and from her minders in the administration. And it is not the "rule of law" Cuban Americans are protesting, but an arbitrary decision masquerading as a legal
imperative.
There is no law that says Elián must be returned to totalitarian Cuba. What the law says is that Reno can send him back, but it gives her tremendous discretion. She could just as easily order him to stay, or for that matter maintain the administrations original
position, which is that it is all a matter for a family court. Does anyone doubt that if the case involved a 14-year-old girl to be returned to her father in a country that practices genital mutilation, that Reno would have made an entirely different determination? Alas, Cuba only mutilates souls.
Make no mistake it isnt the law that is an ass in this case, its Janet Reno.
National Review 215 Lexington Avenue New York, New York 10016 212-679-7330 Customer Service: 815-734-1232. Contact Us. |