Today's Elian sound bite

As the battle of images becomes a war of words, we bring you the quote of the day on the Gonzalez saga.

Published April 27, 2000 4:00PM (EDT)

The weekend's battle of images in the
Elian Gonzalez drama turned into a war
of words as
Washington windbags tried to top one
another with out-of-control rhetoric and
imagery.

Peggy Noonan kicked it off in the Wall
Street Journal on Monday, with her
complaint that the godless President
Clinton ignored the symbolism of the
dolphins who allegedly accompanied Elian
while he waited for rescue. "Mr. Reagan
would not have
dismissed the story of the dolphins as
Christian kitsch, but seen it as
possible evidence of the reasonable
assumption that
God's creatures had been commanded to
protect one of God's children."

No one has quite matched Noonan, but
Salon is committed to a daily report on
the day's best Elian sound bite. Today's
comes from Maureen Dowd in the New York
Times -- as hilarious as Noonan, albeit
intentionally.

Dowd's spoof of the post-Elian
Republican platform included a "family
values" plank that held, "The best care
for some
children, especially in the early years,
can come from a loony
cousin-on-the-verge-of-a-nervous-breakdown. Government must sometimes
separate a child and parent, if that
parent is hindering
electoral votes."


By Daryl Lindsey

Daryl Lindsey is associate editor of Salon News and an Arthur Burns fellow. He currently lives in Berlin and writes for Salon and Die Welt.

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