I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis.
If a picture's worth a thousand words, we got it following the appalling conclusion to the Elian Gonzales story: the picture of the INS agent in full battle gear pointing an assault rifle at the terrified six-year-old.
It was the ultimate ending to a sad story. Janet Reno sends in the Marines while Bill Clinton romances Fidel Castro. Is this really what we've come to? Armed federal troops busting in on law-abiding citizens whose only crime was they didn't want to send one of their own back to the dictator whose country is so awful the boy's mother was willing to die trying to escape him? One misstep, just one, and shots could have been fired. What was Janet Reno thinking? Or Bill Clinton? Or were they thinking at all? What did an armed federal raid accomplish that a couple of Dade county cops knocking on the door with a court order couldn't?
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, whatever happened to the fourth amendment?