DAZED AND CONFUSED

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, May 3, 2000

Lee Dresselhaus / L’Observateur / May 3, 2000

Will this thing never end? It seems we’re trapped in some weird episode of the “Twilight Zone,” where everything revolves around a 6-year old boy, and no matter what we do or how we try to get away we always seem to come back to him, him, and more him.

They’ve even got me doing it now because this is the second column I’ve written about Elian Gonzalez, our latest national media obsession. And I don’tusually like to repeat a subject, at least not this soon. In the words of YogiBerra, (the baseball player, not the bear from Jellystone Park) it’s like deja vu all over again. But I just can’t seem to help myself because some of whathappened this past week needs comment, and I can provide a sensitive, insightful view of the whole thing. It’s the kind of guy I am. Starting with this little observation. It’s a pity that we’ve grown accustomedto slanted media coverage. The picture of that Federal agent holding theautomatic weapon on the boy and whoever that was holding him in the closet was splashed all over. It was on every newscast, in every newspaper, and inmost of the news magazines this past week, and if it hasn’t been there yet, it will be. There has been much hue and cry over the fact that the agent hadthe gun pointed in the direction of the boy and the guy holding him, and folks have been hollering about excessive force, etc, and there has been much demonizing of that agent because of the pointed gun.

Let me give all those folks out there who are doing all the hollering about that picture and that agent this little piece of advice. Unless you know whatyou’re talking about, shut up.

What the media didn’t bother to explain when they distributed this sensational picture was this.that agent didn’t have anything to do with thefact that the raid was ordered by Janet Reno and her cronies. He is just likeall of the rest of us. He has a job. The boss told him to do his job, and he did.It isn’t his fault the whole thing went that far. Now, as far as the gun goes,keep this in mind. When he yanked open that closet door he had no idea whoor what was in there. Okay, maybe it’s just the boy being hidden by anunarmed man. Or maybe not. And that agent also has a family, a wife, somekids, and I’ll bet he feels pretty strongly about getting home to them every night, intact and unpunctured. Just like the rest of us. A shotgun blast tothe face or body from someone hiding in that closet with bad intent would ruin that little plan, wouldn’t it? Not to mention his life, and the lives of his family.

Let’s not forget that some statements were made by some of the self- styled protectors of the boy that included phrases like over my dead body, not as long as I live, etc. Empty rhetoric? Maybe. And maybe not. So instead of taking the chance that everything was peaches and cream and everyone would play nice, that agent in the picture did what he was supposed to do. He did his job. He did it carefully, and he and everyone else came outsafely.

So all you media types out there who are criticizing that single agent, lay off.

Don’t blame him for being safe because if you had any sense at all and were in the same situation you would have done the same. Put the blame where itreally belongs.

On Janet Reno and the Justice Department Gang. And not just because shelooks like Frankenstein in drag, either. She can’t help that. And blame the kid’s American family. They played the media like a trumpet,firing note for note in answer to the media bugle the feds were playing. Andthe media, being the collective gaggle of liberal idiots they are, let them.

They responded to the tunes of both sides like geese being called to a baited field. Both groups should be ashamed of the blatant manipulation and that itever had to go as far as it did.

Finally, I’d like to address some of the comments made by the Cuban/American family of the boy after the raid. Now, I’m not a flag waving,rabid, my-country-right-or-wrong type of person, but when I hear a part of a group that was welcomed into this country with open arms, given a new life and a prosperity they would have had little hope of attaining in Cuba saying they are ashamed to be Americans and flying the American flag upside down, well, it makes me want to say this.

That 90 miles to Cuba goes BOTH ways. That’s always an option, you know.Anyway, the kid is back with his father, and that’s how it should be.

Like it or not.

Lee Dresselhaus is a regular columnist for L’Observateur

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