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HenchPAC NewsWith her Monday statement of support for the Clinton administration's Easter weekend gunpoint abduction of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez, Hillary Clinton has now flip-flopped on the issue a full 180 degrees.
In a December response to a letter from Elian's de facto American mother, Marisleysis Gonzalez, the first lady clearly indicated she supported the boy's right to stay in America.
But in a terse three paragraph press release issued two days after her husband authorized armed federal agents to snatch Gonzalez from his Miami home, Mrs. Clinton adopted an entirely new stance.
Couching her new support in an attack on her Senate opponent, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Mrs. Clinton praised the raid as a complete success.
Giuliani has been harshly critical of the federal assault, comparing the tactics employed by the Clinton administration to those of "storm troopers."
But Mrs. Clinton called the mayor's rhetoric "extreme and unwarranted," despite the fact that the agents who seized Elian were indeed dressed like troops, armed with machine guns, and did storm the house. She called Giuliani's position "divisive ... at a time that cried out for healing."
The first lady also made the erroneous claim that, "Saturday's action was accomplished rapidly and without injury."
NBC cameraman Tony Zumbado and his sound technician were beaten by federal agents during the raid, which prevented the network from capturing some of the most dramatic video footage since the Rodney King assault.
Mrs. Clinton's new stance is a sharp departure from her response last year to Ms. Gonzalez, when the first lady answered through her spokesman, Howard Wolfson: "The best interests of the child should be the most important consideration in determining his future.
"Certain legal procedures currently underway should take into account Elian's wishes, the benefits of growing up in a democracy and the sacrifice his mother made to bring him to freedom."
Saturday's abduction of Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint short-circuited the legal procedures Wolfson cited in Clinton's response to Marisleysis. Experts predict that Elian's request for asylum will now be withdrawn and he will be shipped back to Cuba within weeks, if not days.
Even the strongest proponents of Elian's return to his father don't argue that sending him back to Cuba will be in his best interests.
When Vice President Al Gore switched sides on the Elian debate in January, the media criticism was so intense he plummeted in the polls. Of course, he made the mistake of departing from the Clinton administration's pro-Castro line, while Hillary has since moved in the opposite direction.
Apparently political fecklessness only counts against candidates who end up favoring freedom.
Mrs. Clinton's response to Marisleysis Gonzalez was first reported by ABC News.com on December 16, 1999.
HENCH adds: The bitch needs to get some new advisors, the ones she's got are making her look almost a stupid as she is.
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