Today, as the left decries the lawful deportation of illegal immigrants it is telling that a mere ten years ago they backed the use of federal troops to extract an illegal from a private home and send him back to a totalitarian country his mother tried to escape with him from.

Historians argue that events should be studied only after fifty years has passed. Only from that vantage point can all the complexities of the event be taken in. Not so with the Elian Gonzales case; its features were evident from day one.

It was a spectacle wrought with leftist hypocrisy. President Bill Clinton, a perjurer, argued that the "rule of law" required Elian to be returned to a Communist dictator. The President, who has broken up several homes by his perpetual adultery, expressed support for the verdict by citing a parent's bond with his child.

The Attorney General, who oversaw the scorched bodies of Waco, spoke of the Swat Team raid as saving the little boy. Others saw little wrong with the rioters' actions in LA but attacked the restrained Miami Cuban demonstrations as terrorist activities. Jesse Jackson, so verbal when it comes to drug enforcement raids of crack houses occupied by blacks, had little to say about the government raid into the house of people of another color. The First Lady, a self-described defender of children's rights, advocated the return of a child to a totalitarian regime where he will be indoctrinated by force.

But the ironies do not end there. In the past, government-sponsored raids were conducted against Castro. Recall the Bay of Pigs. Recall Operation Mongoose.In the Clinton era, they were conducted for Castro. In Cold War times, it was the Democratic Party that appeared on platforms with anti-Castro Cubans. In 2000, the platforms were joined by Elian's father of the Cuban Communist Party amidst the pomp and splendor of a Democratic fund-raiser.

Presidential initiative was once pitted against totalitarian aggression: FDR bombing Japan; Truman and the Berlin Airlift; Reagan and Granada. In 2000 it is used against us. The Clinton government authorized a raid without a search warrant, kidnapped a refugee from a private home, and turned him over to waiting Cuban officials. The administration prevented this child from seeing his court-appointed lawyer, his Miami relatives, and media observers, while permitting Cuban agents to begin their brain-washing campaign using the "Young Pioneers."

Perhaps the greatest irony lies in the fact that not a word of protest was uttered by those who claim to support human rights. No cries of governmental abuse from the ACLU. No cries of discrimination by the Rainbow Coalition. No serious attempts by Congress to investigate. Certainly no protest from the public who saw this case as a normal custody procedure amidst the rampages of Federal troops.

Today, Elian Gonzales is sixteen and expresses fist-clenched approval of Uncle Fidel. God knows how much debriefing and indoctrination was required upon his arrival back to Cuba in 2000. We will never know until glasnost comes to Cuba.

But aware of how the Left behaved then and now reveals their dirty little secret regarding immigration. Then as now, they shy away from the travails and injustices of Cuban illegals, but wage ink and the threat of lawsuits on behalf of Mexican Americans. The reason is simple and cynical: Cuban-Americans are a reliably Republican voting bloc; the Mexican-American community is still up for grabs, and hence impervious to the kind of federal raids that characterized the Gonzales case.

Ron Capshaw