WASHINGTON – President Clinton acknowledged yesterday he wants “to stay out” of the raging controversy over little Elian Gonzalez, which he has dumped squarely in Attorney General Janet Reno’s lap.
“I have done everything I could to stay out of it,” Clinton said when asked about the tug of war between the Cuban raft boy’s father and his Miami relatives.
Clinton said he didn’t even talk to Reno yesterday and White House spokesman Jim Kennedy later said the president had no plans to – despite fears that Miami could be on the brink of riots over Reno’s decision that the 6-year-old be returned to his father, who plans to take the boy back to Cuba.
Vice President Al Gore’s aides nixed a planned question-and-answer session with reporters – his first in 54 days – because of the “volatile” situation in Miami.
“It’s a very fluid situation. It’s very difficult to answer questions in a way that would have been helpful,” said Gore spokesman Chris Lehane.
Republican National Chairman Jim Nicholson scoffed that if Gore is “afraid” of reporters, “how will he face Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein?”
GOP presidential rival George W. Bush accused the White House of pandering to Cuba’s Fidel Castro and said the feds should have “stuck” to their original plan to let Florida’s family court decide Elian’s fate.
“That’s what I would have done,” Bush said.
Both Clinton and Gore have tried to distance themselves from the explosive dispute over what to do with Elian after his mother drowned off the coast of Florida while fleeing Cuba.
At stake for Gore is Florida, where Cuban-Americans are a key political bloc.
In a move widely panned as pandering to Cuban exiles, Gore abruptly broke with Clinton by saying Elian should become a U.S. resident.
Clinton, pressed on the likelihood of federal marshals taking the child, said Reno “hopes, and I still hope, it won’t come to that.”
But he didn’t rule it out, emphasizing “it is our responsibility to uphold the law.”