Weatherkiss: How it started: The boy's Miami relatives argued if he went back to Cuba, he would become a brainwashed trophy for Castro in his long-running feud with the US.

How it's going: "I don't profess to have any religion, but if I did my God would be Fidel Castro. He is like a ship that knew to take his crew on the right path," González said in an interview with Cuba's state-run media in 2013.
González often said Castro was like a second father to him.

That's on us for not returning him to his father immediately but instead letting his unhinged distant relatives whore him out for the media attention.

Oh, dear God. The unhinged stupidity of that whole debacle is all coming back to me.

"Elian's saint of a mother was smart. She dressed him in a bright orange shirt and bright yellow shirt to ward of the sharks."
"So in other words...this stupid idiot was preparing for the contingency that her six-year-old child would be floating in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico surrounded by f**king sharks. Yeah, mother of the year."

Mrtraveler01: gunga galunga: Oh, dear God. The unhinged stupidity of that whole debacle is all coming back to me.

"Elian's saint of a mother was smart. She dressed him in a bright orange shirt and bright yellow shirt to ward of the sharks."
"So in other words...this stupid idiot was preparing for the contingency that her six-year-old child would be floating in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico surrounded by f**king sharks. Yeah, mother of the year."

Yeah, I'm ashamed to admit I bought into the whole stupidity too.

Granted I was a dumb teenager at the time and didn't know any better.

You think you're ashamed over that? I was on Dubya's side during the whole 2000 election clusterf**k.

BunchaRubes: gunga galunga: Weatherkiss: How it started: The boy's Miami relatives argued if he went back to Cuba, he would become a brainwashed trophy for Castro in his long-running feud with the US.

How it's going: "I don't profess to have any religion, but if I did my God would be Fidel Castro. He is like a ship that knew to take his crew on the right path," González said in an interview with Cuba's state-run media in 2013.
González often said Castro was like a second father to him.

That's on us for not returning him to his father immediately but instead letting his unhinged distant relatives whore him out for the media attention.

No, that's on his relatives.  His mother drowned, his father wanted him back in Cuba.  That should have been the end of the story.  If you remember, which you clearly don't, law enforcement had to raid where he was at and physically take him from his relatives.

I remember that half of the country was four square against giving him back to his father, including the thousands that swarmed by the Gonzalez household on a daily basis threatening violence, so I stand by my choice of words.