In-Eliánable Rights: Slate reviews the European press’ reactions to the Elian affair. There seems to be a remarkable consistency behind sentiments like this:

In the Observer, Hugh O’Shaughnessy…described Cuban-American activists as “one

of the most unattractive group of voters on the US electoral

roll short of the Ku Klux Klan” and said that by teaming up

with “nationalist extremists such as Senator Jesse Helms in

Congress, the exiles have screamed and shouted and

flourished their voting power so that most US politicians have

quailed at the thought of crossing them….I certainly would not

want the six-year-old Elian—or indeed any of my own

grandchildren—to be constrained to grow up amid the

sickening lawlessness of South Florida.”