FIRST, JUST TO GET IT out of the way before I write about one of the the most disturbing news items I have seen since 9/11, let me elaborate on the debate verdict I handed down via Lucianne.com last night: I believe Dick Cheney utterly routed John Edwards in the realm of foreign affairs – so much so I was left thinking (when the foreign-policy portion of the debate ended) that perhaps America would be far better off had the Republican ticket been reversed: the formidable and unquestionably brilliant Cheney as president, the embarrassingly inarticulate George Bush as veep – and, as a consequence, that reincarnation of Neville Chamberlain named John Kerry thus denied even a hell-bound snowball’s chance at the White House. But then the topic shifted to domestic issues, and after a few minutes I began to understand the strategy behind the Democrats’ choice: as lost as Edwards clearly was in the realm of coping with Islam’s ancient war against civilization, he had the home-court advantage on domestic issues – so much so, his impassioned remarks brought to mind Tennessee Governor Frank Clement’s stirring “how long, Lord, O how long” oratory at the 1960 Democratic National Convention.
Never mind that Edwards had no specific proposals – no pledges to bring back a New Deal (which is probably the only way genuinely depressed cities like Cleveland will ever get back to work again). Never mind that Edwards articulated no new ideas at all beyond repeating Kerry’s wise and compelling promise to abolish the tax advantages of outsourcing – a long-overdue and potentially brilliant reform unfortunately tarnished by its companionship with the thoroughly discredited and incipiently Marxist notion of once again increasing taxes on the rich (thereby merely providing more work for the legions of accountants and tax lawyers whose job is to make the rich even richer by shifting the cost of governance onto the rest of us). There was surely nothing here to put instant money in a jobless worker’s pocket, but there was nevertheless the suggestion – implicit in Edward’s passion – that he (and by extension his running-mate) truly care for the people in Cleveland and all the other places that have been sucked vampire-dry by outsourcing, and that healing their crippling economic wounds will be a top priority should a Kerry-Edwards administration be part of America’s future. Measured against the seeming emotionlessness of Cheney’s recitation of socioeconomic fact, there is no question which approach is more likely to mobilize America’s frightened workers – perhaps (depending on how Bush does in his remaining two debates) even resurrecting the economy as a pivotal issue.
But just as Michelle Malkin implies in her most recent column (though she fails to say it outright), winning the debates will do Bush no good at all if he continues to serve the interests of Cheap-Labor Republicans by leaving our nation so open to illegal immigration that Islamic terrorists succeed in poisoning the military’s supply of combat rations. I was going to write of this terrifying possibility even before Malkin addressed it – a friend had yesterday called my attention to CNN’s coverage of the initial local-news reports (available here and here) – but I am delighted Malkin has taken it up, because she has many times the readership I do. Her commentary, doubly significant because it reflects a dramatic erosion of her support for Bush, is here.
Unfortunately (and despite her rightful fury), Malkin does not seem to recognize the root cause of the problem: the longstanding and mostly unacknowledged alliance of the Cheap Labor Republicans with the Big Bureaucracy Democrats – each group motivated by its own brand of morally imbecillic greed – that has turned our “border security” into an oxymoron: a joke before 9/11, a nightmare ever since. Neither faction gives a tinker’s damn about the survival of America. The BBDs see in the endless flood of illegal immigrants an inexhaustible guarantee of jobs for two of their biggest constituencies (social workers and teachers), while the CLRs look to the ever-increasing illegal hordes as the best way to bust unions and further depress (already declining) wages. Hence the latest Bush immigration proposal: amnesty to an entire generation of criminals, scabs and job-thieves. Trouble is, the Democrats are a thousand times worse; as moronically internationalist as the Petrograd Soviet of 1917 or the Berlin Dadaist Revolutionary Council of 1919, many Democrats would do away with borders entirely.
Few dare call it treason – yet. But a solid majority of the electorate – 60-something percent according to every poll I have read – has long been infuriated by blatant do-nothing-to-stop-illegal-immigration policies that began with the Clinton Administration (in service to the BBDs) and have been continued (never mind the post-9/11 threat) by the Bush Administration to pacify the CLRs, no doubt to ensure their megabuck-support in the present political campaign. More disclosures like those in the news items linked above, and anti-illegal-immigration anger might at long last begin to solidify into a mandate for national political action – possibly even the formation of a “protect-the-homeland” party. It has happened before, and not merely in the U.S.
Meanwhile, we once again see the contradictions I wrote about in “Slouching Toward Dhimmitude” (October 4): the Bush Administration talks a good war – Cheney’s foreign-policy performance last night is a perfect example. But when it comes to action, the word of the day is too often “pander” – it matters not whether to Muslims (who by their sullen silence countenance terrorism) or illegal immigrants (who are criminals by definition). As I said: I do not believe any wartime America has ever had a worse selection of candidates from which to choose: Bush the sneaky appeaser versus Kerry the brazen appeaser. I cannot but wonder just how much the Texas firms caught dirty in the unfolding port-security and MRE-plant outrages contributed to the Bush and Kerry campaigns.
Posted by Loren at October 6, 2004 04:38 AM