Saturday, Jul 19, 2008
Did Reno's raid go too far? Plus: Swingers recognize themselves in "The Lifestyle"; DiCaprio is better than some "real" journalists.
Apr 26, 2000 |
A tale of two photos
BY JOAN WALSH
(04/22/00)
It seems to me if you're hiding behind a closet door during a police raid, holding the object of the raiding authorities' search, you should expect to come face-to-face with a law enforcement weapon when that closet door is involuntarily opened.
The fact that the Miami terrorists holding him hostage the last five months were more than willing to subject young Elian to the possibility of a bullet through his head in order to make their political point should prove to the world once and for all the shallowness of their commitment and concern.
-- Dave Abston
Let's face it, Reno did what she had to do. We all know Elian's father has more rights to the boy than any second cousin. We also know that they were not going to hand over the child. The bottom line was the agents had to go in with protection, they had no idea what they would encounter and could only go in prepared to defend themselves and the child. I am proud to say that Janet Reno is our attorney general. Can we get her to run for president? She's got my vote.
-- Adelita G. Garza
So what happens if the next court rules that little Elian should go back with his Miami relatives? Will the Justice Department thugs beat down Juan Gonzalez's hotel room door if he refuses to give up his son? How many times is this little boy going to be traded back and forth at gunpoint?
Elian probably belongs with his father, but that is for the courts to decide. Ripping him out at gunpoint of what had been his home for the last five months is a sickening, disgusting act of child abuse. Just as Reno did the right thing the wrong way in Waco, once again she has managed to do the right thing (reunite a boy and his father) the wrong way in Miami. Our government has truly lost its way.
-- Tim Jones
I am afraid that Reno's tenure at the DOJ will now be sandwiched by two images: one of the Waco compound burning and the other of a little boy with a gun pointed at him.
-- Thomsa Marshall Eubanks
Clinton takes a beating on Elian
BY KERRY LAUERMAN
(04/24/00)
If George W. Bush finds law enforcement "chilling," maybe he should put on a jacket. Hey I'm no legal expert, but until someone can show me that what happened with Elian is not in keeping with what would normally happen in such circumstances (i.e., when someone refuses to unconditionally hand over a child whom they are holding despite not having legal custody), I will see the raid as inevitable and complaints to the contrary as partisan whining.
-- David Lichtenberg
I have never felt the slightest impulse to own a gun in my entire life -- until I awoke on Saturday to the photo of the brutal seizure of Elian Gonzalez. For the first time ever I felt I understood the paranoid rantings of the extremist libertarians who argue that we need weapons to protect ourselves from the government. Fortunately, I gradually came out of my primitive regression, and realized that gun violence is still insanity ... especially when acted out in the name of politics.
-- Ted Peters
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