"Gestapo thuggery"

Alan Keyes triangulates his thoughts between the Nazi Germany, Waco and Janet Reno on Fox News, while Miami's police chief quits.

By Daryl Lindsey

Apr 29, 2000 | GOP presidential hopeful Alan Keyes showed much promise as an orator during the primary season debates but has stumbled (semantically, at least) over Elian. Appearing on Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes," Keyes ignored New York Post columnist John Podhoretz's plea to avoid Holocaust references by comparing Janet Reno's raid on Little Miami to "Gestapo thuggery."

"I think it's another example, which we saw to begin with at Waco and in other ways, of the moral poverty and incompetence of this administration ..." Keyes opined. "And what's the crime of this family that you storm into their home with automatic weapons? That they love this child and want to take care of him?"

And why did Reno act as she did? "The Clinton administration always seems to want to do the communist bidding in the communist, thuggish style, and I think it's sickening."

But Keyes' fire and brimstone passions were tempered by sage words from now-former Miami Police Chief William O'Brien, who was more or less ousted Friday for permitting one of his officers to accompany INS agents on Reno's Raid. "I refuse to be the lightning rod of divisiveness in this community," said O'Brien, offering his resignation from the force. "I refuse to be the chief of police in a city that has someone as divisive and destructive as Joe Carollo as mayor."

Wall Street brokers Anne Michele Lyons and Paul Kuhns, appearing in the Washington Post's "Reliable Source" offered some perspective. The two have booked Wye Plantation for their wedding Saturday night, and Lyons apparently isn't too happy about having to share quarters with the boy who came from the sea. "He's had his day for the past few months. This is our day."

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