The Clinton-Castro operation has been as smooth as could be.
By John Derbyshire, a contributing editor of National Review . 4/20/00 4:45 p.m.
In a recent Gallup poll, a majority of respondents said that Elián González should be removed from his great-uncle's house by force and returned to Cuba with his father. Given that our own State Department has testified that Cuba is a gross and flagrant abuser of human rights; that
we know nothing at all about the father's true feelings, since he may not speak freely to us; and that Elián's mother died attempting to bring him to the U.S.A., what accounts for this finding? I think it is the sum of several factors.
Foremost is the success of the Clinton-Castro propaganda effort. As a public-relations duel, the González affair has been no contest. Lazaro González and his family are up against grand masters is the dark art of "spin" — which is to say, of skillful lying — an
art in which they themselves are untutored. Their ineptness was illustrated by the home video of little Elián wagging his finger and saying "Papa, I don't want to go back to Cuba!" Every American parent who saw that video was at once reminded of his own kids: "Mom, I don't want
to do violin practice!" Beyond sleeping, eating and playing, there is very little that six-year-olds want to do. You have to sit down and explain to them why they should do certain unpleasant things; and, when reason fails, you must fall back at last on the Ultimate Explanation: "Because
I'm the Daddy, that's why!"
When that video was played on TV news clips, there went through the collective mind of American parenthood the word brat. This is unfair to little Elián, who has suffered the worst thing a child can suffer: the loss of his mother. And I do not mean to imply that his wishes are of no
account; only that they cannot be decisive. To give those wishes prominence, as Lazaro's family did, is merely to make the American public wonder if somebody is making Elián eat his vegetables; and, if not, that his Dad should be there to see to it.
The Clinton-Castro operation, by contrast (and what depths of national disgrace are encompassed by that hyphen!) has been as smooth as could be. It has, in fact, offered a very characteristic example of the mendacity that is now rampant in our political culture. I am presently going to quote
Adolf Hitler, so let me preface the quote by saying that I think it is silly, cheap and shabby to compare any American political figure to Hitler. It is, in fact, a tactic that is employed only by the cheesy Left, and they are welcome to it. I only want to point out that some of the practices of
20th-century totalitarianism have seeped into our own, free, political culture, and have distorted it in unpleasant ways. Well, here is A.H.: "The masses indulge in petty falsehoods every day, but it would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths and they are not able to
believe in the possibility of such monstrous effrontery . . . The bigger the lie, therefore, the more likely it is to be believed. . . . Besides, even the most insolent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down." (Mein Kampf, pp. 180-1, 231 f. of the Manheim
translation).
Some of this — I say again, just some seepage of it — is apparent in the propaganda strategies of our own politicians, most especially during these last seven years. Al Gore seems willing to say anything at all in pursuit of high office, blithe in the belief that the bigger the
whopper, the less able people are to comprehend its falsity. And the remark about a lie leaving traces behind it applies precisely to the much-publicized opinion of pediatrician Irwin Redlener, who declared that Elián was a victim of "child abuse" perpetrated by the Miami relatives.
A couple of news cycles later it turned out that far from being an objective and independent inquirer, as he was at first presented, Redlener was another Clinton flack and a veteran camp follower of the far Left, who had never even met Elián. Never mind: millions of Americans, unaware of the
follow-up revelations down at the bottom of page eighteen, now believe that Lazaro González and his family are certified child abusers. Indeed, it is a testimony to the power of the Clinton slander machine, and its willing agents in the media, that a family of modest means, who took in a
shivering motherless child and treated him with love and care as one of their own, are now fixed in the minds of millions as kidnappers and child abusers. Thus evil does its work, by traducing the good.
Also at work here has been a deeper malaise in our culture, one much commented on in other contexts. I refer to the warm, sugared bath of sentimentality in which all our public dramas are now immersed as soon as they develop. The González affair has been Oprahed. An example of what I mean
was given on the TV program Sixty Minutes last Sunday, when Dan Rather conducted a disgracefully incompetent interview with Juan González. If they had let me do the interview I would have asked questions like: What exactly were you doing, Sr. González, in December, January, February
and March? How many meetings did you have with the Cuban secret police during those four months? How many with Fidel? What promises were made to you? What threats were made against you? Where are your parents right now? How many children does your girlfriend have? Where are they? Of course, the poor
fellow could hardly give honest answers; but at least we should have seen him sweat a little. You can figure out a lot by watching a guy sweat, as readers of Tom Wolfe's last novel will know. Instead, here was Dan: "I want to ask you something, man to man. After you saw that videotape for the
first time, did you weep?" And: "Tell me what you felt, not just in your head but also in your heart." That is our culture, our Dan-Oprah culture. Never mind what happened: How did you feel? Did you weep? "Opinion is cheap: facts are scared," said C.P. Scott . . . but that
was 70 years ago. Nowadays, facts are cheap while feelings are sacred. The Clinton crowd are world champions at this stuff. Who can squeeze out a tear more authentically, more opportunely than our pain-feeler-in-chief? A person like Lazaro González, from the older, Latin-macho school of
masculinity, doesn't stand a chance against this tsunami of syrup.
The propaganda war aside, there is also a widespread public feeling that a child belongs most properly with his parents, whatever their circumstances may be; and this has surely contributed to the sentiment uncovered by Gallup. This is a respectable opinion, indeed it is a conservative one. It
is embodied in our laws: It is rare--though not altogether unknown — for custody of a child to be granted to anyone other than a parent, if a parent is available and not grossly unsuitable. And this is right and proper, so far as a domestic approach to child custody issues goes. As best we can
determine Juan Miguel González is not a person unfit to be given custody of children. He already has custody of at least one; though he seems not to have taken the trouble to commit himself to marriage on its behalf. If he sincerely wishes Elián to live in Cuba with him, then I would
personally support the child's return to Cuba with his father. The difficulty is that we do not and cannot know what Sr. González wishes. The Cuban government has taken his parents hostage — they have been moved from their home town to a secure government compound. There are strong
rumors that the woman who accompanied him to America also has another child in Cuba, who no doubt is also a guest of Castro's secret police. Castro had four months to work Sr. González over. The U.S. government, to its everlasting shame, has cooperated with the Cubans in these hostage-taking
arrangements, and helped to keep Sr. González on a very short leash while he is here. Having no inkling what the man's true feelings are, nor any way to find out, I do not think we should place Elián in his hands.
At the time of writing, a federal court has determined that little Elián should stay here at least until his case can be discussed in a court of law. I hope the case will be fairly heard; I hope that the nature of the life Elián may expect in Cuba will be taken into consideration
in the deliberations of the court; and I hope — though I fear this is too much to hope — that the court will defer ordering any change in Elián's custody arrangements until his father can address the court freely and without fear. Only then could there be a just resolution of this
sorrowful matter.
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