Posted on 02/21/2006 11:41:27 PM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
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But they sh_t out the back end.
ARCADIA wasn't trying to be funny, and I concur with his/her assessment. Dane, I've seen you on the immigration threads for several years. Nothing, no matter how heinous, will sway you from your opinion that compromised borders are anything but a disaster. It's good for America, and it is the American way. I sincerely hope that one day you don't come to personally regret the positions that you cling to.
Handing over our ports will prove to be a national disaster. Watch and see.
Some members of Congress are saying that there will be enough votes to override the President's veto on this issue.
It'll all come out in the wash, I suppose. Religious/ethnic identity might be a strong compulsion for pretenders in the long, confusing (for now) war, at times. The result of that could be more spectacular than anything we'd want to see. Or such identity motivations don't exist, and we'll appease happily ever after.
Quite a few influential constituents were in favor of having our military win the conflict with Islamists, but many of those constituents have changed their minds now. They would like to have our forces simply stop the fighting and come home, and help to nominate Al-Condi (mabye even with a "male" as her running mate). Such constituents miss their good old days of living under Hillary's rule, complaining about it, and devising conspiracy stories.
FYI, AC. This simply confirms what I was saying last night:
But the specifics don’t matter; arguments about the specific nature of the Dubai Ports World organization’s global reach and responsible track records don’t matter. Because it feels immediately, instinctively wrong to nearly every American, and that isn’t something that can be argued away with charts or glossy brochures. It just doesn’t sit well. Period. It’s one thing for an Administration to misjudge how a particular decision will be received; it’s another entirely to misjudge an issue that cuts to the core of the Administration’s core strength. That’s where you slap yourself on the forehead in the style of those lamenting the failure to request a V-8 in a timely fashion. Doesn’t matter whether it was a deal struck between the previous administrators and the UAE; that’s not how the issue will be seen. And it certainly doesn’t matter once the President gets all stern on the topic and insists he’ll veto any attempt to keep the deal from going through. At that point, millions of previously resolute supporters stand there with their mouths open, uttering a soft confused moan of disbelief.On the good side: we’re probably done with Shotgungate, and the DailyKos people will start getting worried about dirty nukes smuggled in through the ports.
And there is the problem.
Name a war, any real war. Now name the enemy. Easy right?
What the **** is a war against terror? It's like the other wars that can't be won, the others with a nameless enemy. The war against drugs for one. Or even the war against poverty. War against obesity. I predict there will be no more fat people before we win the war on "terror".
If you can't name the enemy, you can't win.
Are we at war with the UAE? They did supply some of the 9/11 attackers, and the funding. But are they "terror"? Are we at war with them?
They are our friends and our enemy at the same time.
As our friends maybe they should get the Ports but not as our enemy.
While we try to figure which they are, and also the status of our friends the Saudis, we will continue the meaningless "War on Terror".
Precisely.
None made a bid. Not even Haliburton.
So it is the lack of a recoil that tips you off, see?
I've defended the President on this to some extent ... but Lileks nails something here that Republican elitists in Washington had better understand.
As the President says, we're at war ... and Americans have a deeply visceral notion of what border (and port) security should look like at a time of war.
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