October 14, 2001
Janet Reno Hoists Her Baggage Handily
By B. DRUMMOND AYRES JR., New York Times on the Web.
When former Attorney General Janet Reno jumped into the Florida governor's race last month, political handicappers said her odds for success would depend in good part on her finesse in handling some potentially burdensome political baggage. That baggage, of course, is the fiery 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex.; last year's raid in Miami that resulted in Elián González's return to his father in Cuba; and the disclosure that Ms. Reno has Parkinson's disease. So how is she handling these touchy issues as she competes with three other candidates for the Democratic nomination and the right to take on Jeb Bush, the Republican governor and president's brother? Mostly head on, often bringing up the issues on her own. On a recent swing through southeast Florida, Ms. Reno said — volunteered — at one stop that while she suffered from "the shakes," as she called Parkinson's disease, she was basically in good health. Then, quoting what Stephen Hopkins is said to have declared as he signed the Declaration of Independence, she added, "My hand may tremble, but my heart does not." She said she was not worried about a recent judge's ruling that she could be sued on grounds that excessive force was used in the González case. "I feel very comfortable with what I did," she said. "I sent that little boy to his daddy, where he belonged." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/14/national/14POLI.html?pagewanted=print