Mark Steyn: Sometimes it s hard to be a warrior

The Spectator (U.K.) ^ | 03/23/2002 | Mark Steyn

[Pokey78]

Ping for the MSPL.

[Happygal]

Thanks for the ping Pokey! :-)

[FReethesheeples]

Steyn is a genius, as usual.

The Left, the lib-Dems, are EVIL, not stupid.(!)

Its time Bush & his limp-wristed domestic advisors realized this and spend some of his alleged "political capital,"

which, if not spent, as Bush in 1999 himself acknowledged, was the main tragic flaw of his father's one-term Presidency:

Not spending political capital when he had it!!!!!!!!

(I.e., immediately after the Gulf War, when his ratings were in the high 80s, at least.)

[Amelia]

But it all depends where you’re looking from. President Bush is seeing red but acting yeller, Tom Ridge is too green, I’m feeling blue, and my orange was confiscated for security reasons.

Great article, Pokey78!

[borkrules]

Excellent.

[Badray]

Thanks for the ping. He hits the nail on the head again.

[Dog Gone]

This pessimistic assessment completely evaporates if the Republicans capture the Senate this fall.

The fourth member of the Axis of Evil, the Senate Democrats, become completely irrelevant.

[Travis McGee]

The agency [INS, but also DoS] contends its problems are due not to its swollen bureaucracy but to a ‘lack of resources’. The visa-processing system is apparently ‘paper-based’: every mom’n’pop hardware store has its inventory on computer, but, when it comes to which terrorist is eligible for which visa, it’s all down to ledger files and carbon copies.

Is this any way to win a war? Are we serious?

[Cian]

Happiness is...

...a 4-page Steyn article.

Thanks Pokey.

[junta]

Your question is of course rhetorical, it is "NO." Lead properly applied is a good start though at answering your question.

[Travis McGee]

Uncle Sam is still walking around with a "Kick Me" sign on his back.

[headsonpikes]

"Robert C. Byrdistan" bttt!

[aculeus]

Mr President, please fire Mineta.

[maica]

How 'bout "G Gordon's' GPS?! - supposedly used in '93 - wasn't marketed til ''97.

Not too many people up to speed in this technology revolution in some areas!

[Travis McGee]

Atta's visa will go down as a monument to government inefficiency and backwardness.

[maica]

Atta's Visa might become the instrument of sweeping changes in the "can't fire anyone" bureacracies. Talk about an unintended consequence!

[Travis McGee]

So far the monolith is unmoved, even with an angry president, even after 9-11.

[maica]

It is difficult to see an oil tanker change course. I still believe the course will change.

[Common Tator]

If find it funny that people quote Dick Morris. Morris is wrong more than I am, and no one quotes me.

A good war can keep a man in office. And heavens to LBJ, a bad one can take him down. A good economy can keep a bad man in office, and a bad economy can take a good man down.

That is not your advanced rocket science. That is what nearly always happens. But presidents who know how to play a poor economy as FDR did, can stay in office. FDR made it look easy. In war and peace and in depresseion and prosperity FDR knew how to get elected. If FDR was alive today would be preparing to run for his 19th term. If your wife looked like Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt, you would want to stay occupied, too.

When are they going to figure out it does matter what that portion of public that call themselves Democrats and the Republicans are talking about. Everyone knows that Democrats vote for Democrats and Republicans vote for Republicans. That is why they are called Republicans and Democrats.

It is those uncommitted dudes in the center that count. They don't vote in primaries much, but they decide every general election. Those are the people who should be surveyed. Those are the ones whose opinions count.

Most of them are in Dubya's corner. They are how you get from 40 to 60 percent approval rating. They are were Bush's fantastic approval rating comes from. Most people don't remember that on the day he resigned NIXON had a 35 percent approval rating. He never had the Demcrats and the center had left him. But he still had the Repubicans.

The center today likes what Dubya has done in the war They like what he has done so far about the economy. They are going tolike it better as the recovery continues. They think that Tom Daschle is a nasty little nerd. They don't like him. Everytime Daschle thinks of a new way to attack Dubya, he tries it. Only to find out it flopped with that 33 percent of the voting population that is in the middle.

Daschle has no appeal outside the Democratic base and has zero ideas about how to create appeal.

Daschle is headed for little big horn, where he is going to blow it.

Daschle is going to get his ticket and other stuff scalped.