Janet Reno © 2000 JWS

April 09, 2000

By Jaums Sutton

Let’s take a look at our attorney general. Appointed by President Clinton.

On Friday, April 7 she said, and I quote, "All you have to do is listen to him and look at him", referring to Juan Miguel González, father of 6-year-old Elián. So, the premier law enforcement officer of the U.S. has a built-in lie detector/people evaluator! No pesky wires, machines or probes. Just let her look at and listen to the person, and SHE KNOWS. It doesn’t even matter if she is listening through a translator (I’m sure they would have told us, if she is fluent in Spanish).

How did she get so far in her service to the U.S. without revealing this revelation? Imagine the advantage of having this power? The OJ trial could have been over in an hour! Just parade the defendants past her. Probably with a little experience, she could do it faster and faster!

But wait, she also said Elián was a "wonderful little boy" and she hasn’t even looked at nor listened to him. Or did she watch Diane Sawyers visit with him and evaluate him by TV? Wow, you don’t even need to parade the defendants past her. Just put them in front of a TV camera – let’s keep this high tech – and send their images to the PC on her desk over the Internet. She can do one click for guilty and two clicks for not guilty.

Come to think of it, in the case of Elián, she has met face to face with all the principles who say he should be returned to Cuba: The father, the father’s wife and their son, his attorney (Clinton’s college buddy – let’s keep this in the family), as well as the grandmothers and their handlers, the INS people. I’m sure there must be more we don’t even know about. Also Clinton, I would think.

But the closest she has come to meeting any of the principles on the "he should stay here" or "he should get a chance to present his case in a courtroom" side, is her meeting with Sister O’Laughlin, her former friend. Or past friend. Maybe they are still friends. She has refused to meet Elián himself, even though "he is a wonderful little boy," the new mother he chose for himself by himself, nor the family she decided to entrust with his care for four months. I don’t think she has met with their attorneys. No, I doubt it. Maybe the people who rescued Elián? Or the survivors who heard what Elián’s mother was saying as she faced death? Uh, no.

And, isn’t it interesting that the father (greatly outnumbered by his Castro-provided handlers in the house in Bethesda, MD), has been refusing to see the very same people!

But wait, I already forgot, (it’s so hard to keep up with technology), she doesn’t need to actually see people in person to KNOW. And anyway, I guess it might get confusing if she actually did end up feeling something for the little boy sitting on her knee, when she had already decided his fate four months earlier immediately after hearing about what happened to him. We certainly don’t want a confused Attorney General of the United States of America.

She has kept saying "the law is clear." But an official of the INS (very reluctantly) agreed this morning on TV that what the law is actually clear about is that it is up to Janet Reno to determine whether or not the father is in a position to make a valid judgement about his son. Yes, if she were to determine that the father is not free to make his decision, then she can over rule whatever decision he announces. I’m not an attorney, perhaps that is why, when she said so many times that "the law is clear" followed by "the son belongs with his father", I thought she had no choice.

And now she offers a deal for the relatives that have been taking care of Elián: turn him over peacefully and she will "ask" Juan Miguel to stay in the US until the hearing takes place in court. Either she or the law should be clear in this; either he should stay or he should be able to go. She has reduced it to blackmail. True, it would save her from doing the dirty work to carry out HER own decision.

All this leads me to wonder how she was able to make that snap decision four months ago. At that point, she hadn’t even seen the players on TV! Did she base it on information obtained by osmosis? Or because Clinton told her what her decision would be? I think I heard somewhere that she was appointed by him, wasn’t she?

One way or the other, Clinton gets credit for the four months of trauma for this innocent little boy. Whether for giving Janet Reno her decision, or just for appointing her, his loyal follower.

Boy, freedom feels great!