For a kid who once enjoyed Disney World, it's now the Union of Young Communists. That's the news from Elian Gonzalez and the propaganda he serves. Where are those who assured this wouldn't happen?

Bill Clinton and Janet Reno assured the American public that the much-disputed Elian Gonzalez case was only a matter of a child who "belongs with his father," rather than a communist dictator's useful tool. The boy is now 14, and in his latest propaganda stunt, he's in a leading role for 18,000 young communists in the Union, a complete ward of the state.

It didn't have to be that way. As a six-year old, Elian was a refugee on the high seas discovered in an inner tube by fishermen. His mother had died trying to bring him to freedom, and his loving Miami relatives had stepped forward to fulfill her dream.

It wasn't to be. Castro saw an opportunity to dress up the odious image of his regime, and a Clinton administration eager to normalize relations with Cuba was all too willing to accommodate it. Both called it a custody case, and trotted out the boy's then-absent father to rewrite it as all about a father's love.

When the Miami Cubans resisted this glossy picture, Clinton sent the jackboots to seize the boy at gunpoint and sent the child back to Cuba. From there, he didn't live with his father and, contrary to the false assurances of Clinton, he did become a propaganda tool, just as the Miami relatives had warned. They, of course, were ridiculed and reviled.

But with Elian performing yet another propaganda stunt for the Castroites, praising Castro's revolution, it's pretty clear who was right all along.

This latest incident again proves that Elian isn't living some normal life with his father as Clintonites promised. Every year or so, the child is trotted out as a propaganda pony for the Castro regime. Singled out, he's forced to make pro-Castro, pro-communist statements, whether it's Che Guevara's birthday or a Cuban-regime-assisted CBS interview. It doesn't matter what he thinks or feels, because his lifelong role will be to shill for the regime.

But don't expect the Clintonites to apologize to Elian's Miami relatives, whose warnings just got them dissed as hard-liners. Greg Craig, the man who played Elian's "lawyer" for $50,000, isn't going to say anything. Neither will Attorney General Janet Reno, who isn't sorry for the long-running debacle, or her deputy, Eric Holder. Bill Clinton certainly has no regrets.

In fact, all they've done is benefit. Craig is now a Latin American affairs adviser for the Barack Obama campaign. Holder is an Obama favorite for the next attorney general. Kowtowing to Castro, however naively or wrongly, pays big.

But it doesn't mean they still aren't culpable. One day, Elian Gonzalez may yet escape the communist regime, or its foundation may collapse, as all tyrannies do, and there could be a reckoning in what the child was put through.

Craig and Holder can't rule out that Elian may one day be able to speak his thoughts. At that point, the enablers of this ongoing propaganda farce may be called to account. It's child exploitation, and they are complicit.

Labels: Cuba