When Alan Dershowitz and Laurence Tribe, hard core liberals and Clinton supporters from day one, both come down against administration policy, our collective consciousness should be raised.

It would appear that the INS' extraction of Elian Gonzalez is on shaky legal ground.

Dershowitz termed the action "the Executive branch enforcing its own order." He added that "No citizen has an obligation to obey the Executive, unless its order is lawful and backed by judicial authority."

Justice and the INS didn't seek a court order because they were pretty sure that it would be denied. Thus, the Executive broke into a citizen's home without first giving that citizen the opportunity to present his side in court.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Tribe angered liberals last year when he revised his thinking on the Second Amendment: "The Federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification."

But enough of the legal theory.

We now know that Janet Reno's own negotiators were outraged that the raid took place as negotiations were ONGOING. We know that the pool video crew was roughed up by the INS, and was prevented from providing live coverage--after being authorized to be present by Reno. Fortunately, an AP photographer was able to get the "Storm Trooper in Elian's Room" photo.

A United States senator was barred from entering Andrews Air Force Base to visit the child, but Cuban secret police members were waved right on through.

The government doctor who, without benefit of interviewing the child, spoke of Elian's traumatic exposure in Little Havana, was strangely silent on what effect armed thugs grabbing him crying and screaming might have. Those who complained that Elian was unable to speak his own mind would maintain that his father could, while being held a virtual prisoner by Cuban "diplomats."

Let's cut to the big picture.

Many voices are calling for trade with Cuba, and this whole Elian business is just in the way. Clinton is well aware that fatigue is a powerful weapon, and if the polls indicate anything, they show that the public is just plain tired of Elian. He is taking full advantage of our stupefyingly short national attention span.

The people would like to change the channel, fast forward, or leave the Elian website, so to speak. Of course, demonizing the Cuban exiles doesn't hurt either. After all, they can hardly be viewed as a victim group. They're self-sufficient, anti-Communist, and God forbid, mostly Republican. Three strikes and they're out with the elite media.

And, what about this "trade" issue? We have all kinds of things to sell the Cubans, but there's this itty bitty problem: They don't have money to buy anything, and unless the World Bank comes in and subsidizes the whole enchilada, there will be no trade.

But there surely will be dirt cheap labor.

So, where does this leave us? The great and powerful liberal establishment Wizards of Oz are coming down squarely on the side of labor exploitation!!

This is not at all a surprising turn when a political ideology is embraced with religious fervor. Just think of it as one of the innumerable consequences of not knowing what to render to Caesar and what to render to God.