CUBANET ... CUBANEWS

April 19, 2000



Pediatrician Needs His Head Examined

By Steve Dunleavy . The New York Post, April 19, 2000

IN THE case of Dr. Irwin Redlener, the cheese has definitely fallen off the cracker.

My psychiatric diagnosis of Redlener, a pediatrician, is that he's bonkers.

Now who am I to give a psychiatric evaluation of a respected doctor? Well, I'm just as qualified as the man who has told his benefactor Wacko Waco Reno:

"Elian Gonzalez is now in a state of imminent danger to his physical and emotional well-being, in a home that I consider to be psychologically abusive."

Faster than you could say "nut job", the mayor of Miami, Joe Carollo said: "This doctor should get a psychic [telephone] line. If he's that good, he can tell the future for all of us here in America."

Carollo has a basic point for the kiddie doc. You see, "Raving" Redlener has never even interviewed Elian. Now, I suppose that is just about Psychiatry 101. You should at least see your subject. It is a little like a doctor telling me I have a broken toe, without looking at my foot.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who might be out of office, but not out of his mind, told Fox's David Asman: "You oughta ask that doctor what's the effect on Elian being returned to a police state, being censored all his life.

"Ask the doctor, what is the effect of seeing his mother die and being pushed back to the island she took [him] out of.

"The Clinton administration and the liberal media are acting as if this were a simple custody case, and they refuse to acknowledge that Cuba is led by a dictator, and they are acting as if [Fidel] Castro is just the head of state of a neighboring country."

Newt, you're a beaut.

"Raving" Redlener, in commenting about Elian's heartwarming appearance on video, said it looked more like a "hostage tape."

Now who is the hostage? Elian, or his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who travels with goons from a Cuban diplomat's house in Bethesda, Md., to the office of Clinton mouthpiece Greg Craig, and back to the diplomat's house, where he is virtually held prisoner by Castro's leg-breakers, who watch carefully to see if he really is asleep when he closes his eyes.

No, I'm not a behavioral psychiatrist. But take a look at Elian romping with his dog, cuddling his rabbit, mischievously stealing the eyeglasses from Uncle Lazaro, or playing with a little girl next door, Rachel, as they slither down a slide, oblivious to 90-degree heat.

If Elian giggled any more than we had seen and heard, he could be part of a laugh track for a comedy show. Abused? Where are you coming from, "Raving" Redlener?

Redlener talked about the "independent experts" that he sent down to make the assessment that at any moment, Elian is going to be either beaten to a pulp or brainwashed into a Stockholm Syndrome.

Of course, if all these "experts" were so independent, then who the hell paid for them? Perhaps it was the Clinton administration. You got it right.

You see it in court every day. The prosecution pays for a psychiatrist to say that a defendant is sane, and knew what he did when he threw his wife out of the ground-floor window.

The defense will pay a psychiatrist to say the defendant was just playing airplane, because he was deprived of toys when he was a child.

What makes this whole thing so sickeningly cynical, is that "Raving" Redlener makes this gross interpretation of this little boy's physical and emotional state of mind, at a time when this country is wrestling with the crisis of whether he should go back to his real father as stated by the Cuban constitution: Fidel Castro.

On this most holiest of weeks for Jews and Christians, let us all forgive Wacko Waco Reno, who was behind the door when brains were being given out.

New York Post®, nypostonline.com, nypost.com and newyorkpost.com are registered trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc. Copyright 2000 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

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