Republicans sure are funny sometimes, aren’t they? The standard GOP position on the whole Elian Gonzalez situation just drips with unadulterated hypocrisy.

Why is it that the Republicans seem so possessed by a collective drive to keep the cute little six-year-old in the states? It is simple election-year propaganda.

It’s not like the Democrats haven’t ever stooped to psuedo-emotional, irrational sound bite wars against the GOP, but this Elian brouhaha borders on laughable. How can they in good conscience step in front of microphones and reporters day in and day out for weeks, calling a spade a diamond?

Every reason GOP leaders cite for keeping Elian in the U.S. has an insanely hypocritical flip side.

They say that sending Elian back to communist Castroland is wrong because the conditions there are poverty-stricken and repressive.

But GOP leaders are willing to promote more harsh penalties to try to keep the rest of the Cubans, Haitians, Mexicans and various other would-be illegal aliens who try to start a new life in America out of this country.

They constantly ignore the bond between a child and his parents, suggesting instead that American culture is more important than the love of a father.

But when GOP leaders step over to the next soapbox, they clamor for votes by insisting they stand for family values and are appalled by the breakdown of nuclear families.

They say federal agents who carry guns to protect themselves from violent protesters incensed beyond reason are using “Gestapo tactics.”

But when you put those assault rifles in the hands of ordinary Americans who are protecting themselves from — well, from nothing — they call those men and women patriots.

GOP leaders rally behind the Cuban-Americans in Florida who are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure this one little kid can live in America, championing their passionate cause.

But when they get back in the lonely confines of the Capitol, they are the ones pushing to get English declared America’s official language, ignoring their newfound buddies in Miami, most of whom live in the U.S. quite effectively without ever learning English.

GOP leaders say the photo of a federal agent with his gun drawn moments before Elian is taken into federal custody demonstrates the brutality of the pre-dawn Saturday raid.

But they claim the photo of Elian smiling in the hands of his father is a forgery, without mentioning that the only reason the raid was documented on film was because one of Elian’s relatives shooed the Associated Press photog in the door as federal agents stormed the house.

GOP leaders say it is important for Elian to be in America so he can enjoy the freedoms of expression, religion and assembly in this country.

But they are the same lawmakers who constantly push to limit those liberties, calling organizations whose intent is to protect them, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, left-wing “commie” groups.

They are the ones who insist it would be better for Elian to grow up in America, where he could avoid the oppressive economic conditions in Cuba.

But it is their Cuban embargo that creates those oppressive conditions, and it is their lack of compassion for the poor that ensures that Elian’s life in little Havana would be at least as squalid as a childhood in Cuba.

GOP leaders say they are ashamed of the raid in Miami over the weekend, embarrassed that America would engage in such “police-state tactics,” even though the raid brought about few injuries and no deaths.

But they are not ashamed at all when they push likely Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Al Gore to “take a stance” on the issue, blatantly attempting to connect the veep to an administrative decision he had no hand in making.

And lastly, they assume that voters are going to buy their sudden compassionate turn, their clenched-teeth lying and their pathetic stab at having a crystallized, divisive issue with which to attack President Clinton and Gore.

But what GOP leaders didn’t count on was that Americans are tired of Elian.

The issue might still burn in a few Floridian hearts for a couple of months, but as for the general electorate, the GOP will have to find another angle in its constant quest to burn Clinton and Gore at the stake of public opinion.

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David Roepke is a junior in journalism and mass communications from Aurora. He is a news editor at the Daily.