Democrat Outlook

As I saw the UAE ports deal go down by huge inside the beltway margins, I decided that all the parties inside the beltway except for Bush had found something they could agree on, stupidity. All the folks in Congress, Republican or Democrat are politicians at heart, which is very often just a slightly more complimentary way of saying “weasels”. Reagan is the only guy of my lifetime that managed to get to a leadership position that seemed to have far more principle than politics. Bush shows some good tendencies to that direction from time to time, and on this one his weasel quotient was exemplary.

We have established that a huge percentage of Americans, maybe 75% or more are anti-Arab company “ownership” of US ports. Very few of them likely know what they are really against here, but the media usage of “Arab", “foreign ownership” and “threat to security” was enough to stampede even more than the usual sheep. I’m reminded that 75% of the sheep were once in favor of the Iraq war as well, so the sheep are fickle.

When I allow the negative Democrat side of my brain to run wild I can see a dark vision in which the protectionists of right and left get together, pass some protectionist legislation that kills the current round of globalization. The Democrats win both houses of Congress in the fall and start impeachment for Bush, they pull out of Iraq, the markets crash world wide and the world plunges into the great depression II along with global terrorism. The MSM and the Democrats are insufferable in smug happiness as they settle in to blame it all on Bush as they blamed the first depression on Hoover and we face a new 50 dark years of Democrat hegemony.

Actually, just a negative dream, but March being the cruelest month in MN, it is tempting to think like a Democrat sometimes. As I look at the current Bush travails, I’m reminded that the media does a 50% good job of reporting with both parties; they report success well for Democrats, and failure well for Republicans, but there is always an issue of “hope”. Bill Clinton was always “the comeback kid”. Whenever he faced problems due to the evil Republicans or nasty stains, the media expectantly licked their chops and looked for another sign of a “comeback” … a good speech, a slight uptick in the polls, some stock going up, a woman with big hair within his reach, ANYTHING was a sign of a new fantastic “comeback”. They loved him.

Bush was “certified dead on arrival” after the 2K election … not really elected, “appointed president”. He was double dead when the great hero Jim Jeffords defected to the Dems and gave them a Senate majority. He was guaranteed to lose seats in the 2002 elections, presidents usually do, and he was guaranteed to. Afghanistan was a “quagmire” in 2 weeks. Iraq was a giant mistake from the beginning, and the list just goes on and on … “Mission Accomplished”, Abu Grab, 1K soldiers dead, the economy, jobs, this poll, that poll, Katrina, Meyers, now the ports. The MSM has declared Bush “dead and over” so many times they can’t be listed. So far he has recovered and come back from every one of them to date bigtime. He isn’t any “comeback kid” though … when the MSM sees Bush recover, their attitude is the opposite.

The Republicans in Congress have done themselves no favors on this one. Today the sheep think it is a great idea to diss the Arabs and Bush on the ports deal, tomorrow they will have changed their minds. When you tie yourself to polls and politics vs principles, tomorrow is even more volatile than the normal events of life and the world make it. We will pay for the ports deal over time. We need friends in the mid-east, the UAE have been solid friends, yet we have shown that racism, protectionism, and playing politics are worth more to us.