What was she thinking?

By John N. Doggett

Janet “Waco” Reno has now secured her place as the most infamous attorney general in America’s history. For many of us, her name is a dirty word. She is the personification of “see no evil, hear no evil, just be evil.”

When members of the Clinton administration committed blatant acts of treason, moral turpitude and fraud, Janet did nothing. When, however, a child custody case threatened America’s survival, Janet showed the world that she was made of tough stuff. It’s just too darn bad that she was not made of the right stuff.

Where were you when you learned that Janet desecrated Easter and Passover with her assault of the Gonzalez home? How did you feel when you saw the photograph of the SWAT team member pointing a machine gun at Elian and the fisherman? Did you ever think that your government would spend a million dollars to intervene in a family law dispute between a father and his relatives while it ignored acts of treason and criminal acts by the president and vice president? Did it even cross your mind that Janet would act in the same week that we memorialized Waco and Oklahoma City? Do you still think that the militias are all wrong about a Clintonian police state?

I am proud of how the Miami Cuban American community kept their cool. I don’t know if I could have done the same. Every time I see that horrible picture, I want to cry, shout and get even. By not rioting in response to the egregious violation of all that is good, Miami’s Cuban Americans have kept the focus on Janet, Al, Bill and Hillary.

Janet did not act in a vacuum. The timing of her raid had all the makings of the typical cynical Clinton political machine. If you think I am overreacting, chew on this. Why did the same lawyer who defended Clinton in the Monica case come to the defense of Juan Gonzalez?

The Clinton spin masters knew that the Elian story was getting out of control. So they wanted a quick hit that would have the least damage to Al and Hillary’s campaign. And they knew that the sooner they moved, the more distance they could put between the raid and the November election. They also knew that they could fabricate news events that would force Elian off the front page.

Let’s connect the dots. Janet runs the Justice Department. She has complete control over what her department does in the Microsoft case. It is not surprising, then, that right after the Elian raid, her department announced that it would go after much stiffer sanctions against Microsoft? This threw the stock market into a tizzy and took Elian off the front page. The fact that it cost Americans billions of dollars was not important. Because this was all about politics, not justice.

Castro threatened to send hundreds of thousands of his citizens to Florida if we did not reunite Elian with his father. If you think that America could stand up to the threats of Castro, think again. The last time Castro let his people leave Cuba freely, in 1979, Republican Frank White defeated Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, in the fall of 1980.

When Castro let hundreds of thousands of Cubans flee to America, Florida was overwhelmed and many Cubans ended in detention camps in Arkansas. Clinton’s government treated them so badly that they rioted. The stench from that fiasco helped White beat Clinton in the 1980 gubernatorial election.

Bill and Hillary cannot afford for Al Gore to lose. Because if George W. Bush becomes president, he will appoint a real attorney general for the first time in eight years. A real AG will send people to prison for the crimes that they committed during the Clinton’s eight years of infamy. Big Al, the fabricating guy that he is, will do nothing.

Well no, that’s not right. Al will do something all right, and it won’t be pretty; it certainly won’t be in the interest of justice, decency or the truth. Because there is no “compelling legal authority” to force him to do so. Not even his oath.

If you don’t like what you saw on Easter eve morning, get off your rear end and vote.

If you believe that sending a SWAT team into an American citizen’s home without a search warrant took a chapter out of the Nazis’ playbook, get off your rear end and vote.

If you think that the Elian issue should have been left to a family law court, get off your rear end and vote.

If you think that Janet and the Clintons have sold America down the river to the Communists of Cuba and China, get off your rear end and vote.

If you think that Al Gore is Bill Clinton without charisma, get off your rear end and vote.

If you love America, believe in God and don’t want to live in a police state, get off your rear end and vote.

John N. Doggett

John Doggett is a business school professor, management consultant and lawyer who lives in Austin, Texas. In 1998, Talkers Magazine selected John as one of the 100 Most Influential Radio Talk Show Hosts in America . In 1997, Headway Magazine selected John as one of the 20 Most Influential Black Conservatives in America. Read more of John N. Doggett's articles here.