The Photo NewsMax Doesn't Want You To See

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Photo credit: Associated Press/Alan Diaz

The Photo NewsMax Doesn't Want You To See

All sorts of Elian photos are posted at NewsMax. Why not this one?

By Terry Krepel
Posted 4/24/2000

NewsMax is proud to distort the news about the pre-dawn taking of Elian Gonzalez from his relatives in Miami. This we knew. So it's no surprise that Chris Ruddy and the boys are in no hurry to show you the above photo.

Why? It contradicts two major claims NewsMax and like-minded folks would have you believe about the raid.


Fascinating statistic: Number of references on NewsMax to the fact that Greg Craig, attorney for Juan Miguel Gonzalez, helped defend President Clinton during the impeachment: 8 Number of references on NewsMax to the fact that Kendall Coffey, lead attorney for the Gonzalez relatives in Miami, abruptly quit his job as a federal prosecutor in Florida after being accused of biting a lap dancer at a strip club in 1996: 1

It was taken seconds after the infamous shot of a "G-man in riot gear" (to quote NewsMax) brandishing a gun in front of a frightened Elian and Donato Dalrymple, the Miami fisherman who rescued the boy five months earlier, hiding in a closet. (American Politics Journal gets the credit for finding the photo and doing the first report on this.)

A NewsMax story, dramatically titled "Child Abuse, Clinton Style," quotes Dalrymple as saying he believed Elian had been physically injured in the abduction:

"It's as if they were taking a terrorist, a hostage. And they grabbed the boy, and I said, 'Please, don't hurt the child, don't hurt the child.' They grabbed this boy physically. They hurt him physically and emotionally. They ripped him from my arms."

And the photo shows what? Dalrymple handing Elian over to the agent who was shown later carrying him out of the house. Not even at gunpoint, either. No "ripping" that we can see.

In the same article, Marisleysis Gonzalez, the boy's de facto mother in America, said she pleaded with Clinton's agents:

"Please, we'll give you the boy, don't let him see this. He's seen enough, seeing his mother's death. We don't want this. We're not going to do anything. We're not armed. They ran in my room, they broke the closet door. They broke Elian's bed. They went in my mom's room. They broke the door down."

And the photo shows what? The bedroom door on its hinges. Which begs the question: Who knocked the door that the Gonzalez family displayed on TV as evidence of the agents' destruction off its hinges? It appears NewsMax has taught the Gonzalez family a thing or two about distortion.

And speaking of photos: You'll no doubt be relieved to know that Fox News has reported that, after much speculation to the contrary, the photos of Elian and his father are indeed genuine. After all, if Fox News says it and NewsMax prints it, it must be true.

The next NewsMax scoop? My guess is that they will follow up on the Drudge Report and hunt down the address of the female agent who carried Elian out of the house, as well as the names and ages of her children and where they go to school.