A note on the Amazon ads: I've chosen to display current events titles in the Amazon box. Unfortunately, Amazon appears to promote a disproportionate number of angry-left books. I have no power over it at this time. Rest assured, I'm still a conservative.
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Tuesday, November 04, 2003
America Rocks the Vote: First off, the name. I'm sick of it. "Rock the vote." I thought it was stupid when MTV came out with it decades ago, and I think it's stupid today. They should've canned that slogan the same time they got rid of "Just Say No."
The soundbite montage was funny -- I suspect it will be the best part of tonight's debate.
Third, I'm not sure I can go through with watching this, seriously. The first question from an undergrad at Harvard (and you thought they were supposed to be bright):
I live in Southeastern Michigan, an area with over 500,000 Arab-Americans. Since Sept. 11, many Arab-Americans have seen infringements on their civil liberties, like lack of due process and forced interrogations by the FBI. Sen. Lieberman, you voted in favor the Patriot Act. If you become president, how do you plan to protect the civil liberties of Arab-Americans?
Lies! Lies! Lies!
There were no "forced interrogations" of Arab-Americans by the FBI.
Lack of due process? Name one. Many of the Arabs in America (note I don't say Arab-Americans, because the ones in question are not citizens) who were arrested after 9/11 were held on immigration violations. A few others who were arrested were held as material witnesses. Both categories had lawyers and saw judges.
Does the once thoughtful and honest Sen Joe Lieberman correct the young man? Nope, he's running in the Democratic primary -- which means he's running left.
Very important question and I thank you for it. The best thing we did with the Patriot Act was to sunset it. To say that it needs to be reauthorized or it will go out of existence. And we're gonna look back and see what went wrong with the Patriot Act. In fact, the Bush Administration has been typically secretive about what it did with the Patriot Act, so we don't really know yet how much it protected us or compromised our liberties.
But I'll backpedal from my vote and attack Attorney General John Ashcroft after admitting ignorance, Lieberman told the assembled crowd. OK, I lied, he didn't really say that. He said this:
But I know something bad that happened under immigration law under John Ashcroft as the attorney general. Almost 800 foreign nationals, immigrants, mostly Arab-Americans or people who look like Arab-Americans were arrested, put in jail, held without charges, no notification for their family and no right to counsel. That's un-American and I will fight to end that as president of the United States. We can have security and liberty. If we fight the terrorists who attacked us because of our liberties by compromising our liberties, shame on us.
Read that again. "Foreign nationals...immigrants...mostly Arab-Americans...."
Under Sen. Lieberman's interpretation of the Constitution and relevant law, the second you set foot in the United States, you're an "American." You're a citizen.
The Democrats want to be trusted with the national security of this country? It's a poor start if you can't discern a difference between citizens and illegal aliens.
The next question to Sen. John Kerry asks him what he would have done as manager of the Boston Red Sox in Game 7 of the ALCS when his pitcher, Pedro Martinez, began to falter.
And young voters want to be taken seriously? It wasn't too many years ago that I was part of the "Rock the Vote's" targeted age group -- I never thought to ask a question like that one. Why? Because it's stupid.
Debate over. It's no longer worth my time, 6 minutes 52 seconds in.
11:49 PM
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