These things we know with certainty: Bill Clinton is far better at projecting empathy than actually feeling it. He rarely acts in his official capacity without heavily weighing the political consequences. He faced great political risks in removing Elian from his Miami relatives. There was absolutely no urgency requiring Elian's immediate removal from those relatives. And it is utterly nonsensical to place a child's life at serious risk in the name of protecting him (except perhaps to such unbiased child experts as pediatrician Irwin Redlener).

We must conclude, then, that something other than the child's best interests motivated Clinton to remove him at gunpoint in the dead of night. Indeed, Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., remarked that "one of the mysteries is what is motivating the administration to act in such a perverse way." Perhaps only Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro know what that motivation is.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of whether or not Elian should be allowed to return to Cuba with his father, you cannot credibly defend the administration's uninterrupted pattern of deceit and betrayal in this case.

Janet Reno and the INS initially said that the boy's custody should be decided by a Florida family court. They reneged. Clinton personally promised Sen. Graham that he would not permit Elian to be removed by force from his Miami family. He reneged. The family's lawyers were negotiating in good faith with the administration at the very minute of the siege with the assurance that there would be no forcible removal. They reneged. Oh did they renege.

The chilling pictures of Clinton's storm troopers raiding that peaceful little house portray more eloquently than words could ever express the logical extension of the damnable lie that the President's character doesn't matter. This staggering abuse of power illustrates the folly of the canard that there is some invisible partition between one's private character and his public acts. This is not lying about sex.

Those sobering photos depict an irony that is almost too dramatic for words. On the left half of the picture is Clinton's police state, represented by obscenity-spewing, gun-toting, helmet-sporting, pepper-spraying, authoritarian thugs. On the right half are Elian Gonzalez and Donato Dalrymple, two quintessential symbols of freedom.

Why this unconscionable use of excessive force? Assistant Attorney General Eric Holder said the government had no other option because of the "intransigence of the family who was holding Elian illegally." What intransigence? The family was about to reach a deal by fax when the raid went down. What laws were being broken? The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the government's motion to return custody of the child to his father pending the appeal. Clinton said that in removing Elian he was upholding the law and decision of the federal court. What law? What decision? What planet does he think we're on?

This duplicitous administration can't even come clean about whether it obtained a warrant. Perhaps that's because they know that neither an arrest warrant (this isn't a criminal matter) nor a search warrant (Elian is not property) were appropriate. Contrary to Clinton's propaganda, the Miami relatives were cooperating with the government and Juan Gonzalez and had even offered to work out a shared custody arrangement. There was nothing whatsoever justifying this breathtakingly reckless action. And the government didn't even first try to take the boy peaceably.

Has it occurred to anyone what Clinton's SS goons would have done if they had been met with resistance? Would they have used those weapons? Would they have killed people to save them in the spirit of Waco?

In one sense, Clinton has done us a two-pronged favor. He has reminded us of just how imperative it is that we jealously preserve our right to bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. After 200 years, our government has begun to emulate the tyranny exhibited by the British government at the time of the Revolution. Our citizenry must remain armed to protect itself against its own poor judgment in electing such tyrants as President Clinton.