Terri and Elian

John Fund at Opinion Journal compares the Schiavo case to the Elian Gonzalez event in 1999. In case you forgot, Clinton did not seek Congressional action to trump Florida law, instead he just defied Florida law by rationalizing away federalism via executive order.

Because Elian was underage, his fate would therefore be decided by local family courts. On Dec. 1, the INS issued a statement saying, "Although the INS has no role in the family custody decision process, we have discussed the case with the State of Florida officials who have confirmed that the issue of legal custody must be decided by its state court."

Then the Clinton administration reversed course after protests from the Castro regime reached a fever pitch. On Dec. 9, the INS declared its previous position "a mistake" and said that state courts would not have jurisdiction in Elian's case. They claimed that because Elain was taken directly to a hospital he was therefore never formally paroled into the U.S.--even though he was then turned over to his Miami relatives rather than the INS.

Clinton did not bother with judicial oversight legislation. He just took Elian and gave him back to the Communists:

The Reno Justice Department acted the next day to short-circuit a legal process that was clearly going against it. On Good Friday evening, after all courts had closed for the day, the department obtained a "search" warrant from a night-duty magistrate who was not familiar with the case, submitting a supporting affidavit that seriously distorted the facts. Armed with that dubious warrant, the INS's helmeted officers, assault rifles at the ready, burst into the home of Elian's relatives and snatched the screaming boy from a bedroom closet. Many local bystanders were tear-gassed even though they did nothing to block the raid. Elian was quickly returned to Cuba; because he was never able to meet with his lawyers a scheduled May 11 asylum hearing on his case in Atlanta became moot.

Perhaps Glenn Reynold's "Libertarian Republicans" should remember Elian and think twice about jumping ship and joining the Democrats (because they are supposedly fed up with Congress' support of federal judicial jurisdiction in the Schiavo case).

At least Democrats don't waste time with democracy and legislation.....