Was that like a bad episode of "Cops" or what?
The only thing missing from that grainy, jiggly video of the HolySaturday seizure of Elian Gonzalez was the sound of "Bad Boys" on thesoundtrack as agents grabbed the boy and whisked him away in aminivan, while hysterical friends and family members screamed andcried and lunged for the kid.
Not that I'm joining the knee-jerk chorus of naive protesters whoare invoking the "jack-booted thugs" and "government stormtroopers"cliches while decrying the ham-handed tactics of Janet Reno and BillyClinton.
This wasn't Ruby Ridge. This wasn't Waco. This was a justifiable,well-executed tactical operation, carried out with efficiency byfederal agents.
Yeah, they came in with pepper gas and guns and riot gear,shouting threats and issuing commands. Guess what? That's how thesethings work. Intimidation is a key element in any such operation,whether we're talking about an INS raid or a bunch of cops burstinginto a suspect's house in Chicago.
You don't tiptoe in and shake hands and ask everyone if they're ina good mood. You take control. Don't forget, that kid was essentiallybeing held hostage by those glory-hound distant relatives. What werethe feds supposed to do, say, "Pretty please can we have the kid?"
In a rambling, wildly emotional press conference Sunday morning,Marisleysis Gonzalez warned, "This can happen to your kid, too."
God love her, but there's one problem with that statement. Elianisn't her child. He was not hers to keep.
That press conference also featured Buffalo Bob Smith of NewHampshire, who held up a pink Easter egg that Elian would never getto find, quoted Karen Carpenter and told us the boy now wouldn't getto celebrate Easter. Why, because his father was going to send him tohis room for running away?
Even though Elian is now where he should be, he continues to beexploited and commercialized. Hours after "The Taking Of Elian," asFox News titled it in its instant graphics, a seller on eBay wasoffering $3 buttons with the infamous photo of the armed agentconfronting Elian and his fisherman-rescuer.
"THE CLINTON-GORE LEGACY," reads the message above the picture.Below it: "Send a Message in November, Never Again!"
Other Elian-related items, available on the Internet or fromenterprising vendors in Florida:
Bumper stickers. Posters. Comic books. A coffee mug with a pictureof Fidel Castro and the sarcastic inscription, "World's GreatestDad!" T-shirts. Rubber stamps with Elian's photo. Gag license plates,with a cartoon Elian, um, squirting in Castro's face. An "ElianGonzalez Faberge Egg for Easter." Coffee mugs with the photo of thearmed agent and Elian and the caption, "CLINTON'S AMERICA!"
Some Internet pranksters have periodically put Elian himself onthe auction block: "Cuban boy for sale," stuff like that. But try tobid and you'll be told the auction is "invalid."
Too bad. I pictured Hugh Hefner making a $1 million bid andturning Elian into his own version of Mini-Me.
Or maybe Hillary Rodham Clinton could have made a claim for thepoor kid. Wasn't there some noise about her adopting a child a fewyears back? Accessorizing with an Elian might have been enough toswing New York in her direction.
As for the media, shame on us. We've started the 21st century byturning an admittedly compelling but relatively minor human interestdrama into a typically overblown spectacle. Conducting disturbinginterviews with the child, endlessly playing that disturbing "Papa"video, sending news choppers into the sky to hover above the scene,establishing a "Camp Elian" outside his temporary home, treatingSaturday's handover as if it were the most momentous development thisside of global nuclear war.
There was even a story about a New York Post reporter beingcharged with aggravated battery after allegedly stabbing a TVcameraman with a pen. Class!
We didn't just report on this story; we fueled its momentum withrocket jets of hype. According to the Center for Media and PublicAffairs, as of last week there had been more Elian stories on thenetwork newscasts (261) than there were about the deaths of PrincessDiana (200) and JFK Jr. (161), over similar chunks of time. With thisrecent drama Elian could even make a run at O.J. and Co., whowarranted 431 stories from the networks in the last six months of1994.
This saga will continue to spin and churn in the days and weeks tocome, but it boils down to this:
A mom died. Her son miraculously survived. His dad got him back.
End of story.
Richard Roeper (rroeper@suntimes.com) is the author of UrbanLegends: The Truth Behind All Those Deliciously Entertaining MythsThat Are Absolutely, Positively, 100% Not True!
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