Drezner, as you would expect, has some thoughts on the House’s passage of CAFTA. Among other things, he quotes the Washington Post on Bush’s personal appeal to House Republicans:
Underscoring the importance that Bush attaches to the pact, he put his prestige on the line by making a rare appearance with Vice President Cheney at the weekly closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference. Bush spoke for an hour, lawmakers said, stressing the national security implications of CAFTA, which are rooted in the concern that growing anti-American sentiment in Latin America would flourish if the United States refused to open its markets wider to the nations that negotiated the pact.
“Mothers and fathers in El Salvador love their children as much as we love our children here,” Bush said, stressing the need to look out for the young democracies in “our neighborhood,” according to lawmakers. He also noted that four of the six countries — the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua — have assisted the U.S. military effort in Iraq.
How charming for Bush to bring up El Salvador. Why not just send Negroponte to this meeting and have him slaughter anyone who did not want to vote for CAFTA? Negroponte did such a bang up job with several young democracies back in the 80s why not have him make a Honduran style impression on the wafflers in DC?
Negroponte was right, Reagan was right. The people have spoken.
Right. So when in doubt (or just for fun) create and oversee death squads and slaughter a whole bunch of people. Their just brown skinned, don’t speak English and don’t live in this country so screw ’em.
“How charming for Bush to bring up El Salvador.”
Uh, Jim, it’s called the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Was he supposed to bring up Argentina?
“Their [sic] just brown skinned, don’t speak English and don’t live in this country so screw ’em.”
You’ve pretty well summed up the attitutude of the congressional Democrats who voted against CAFTA.
Jim, we have got to get you off the rock! Shits and giggles death squads? Of course that’s what we were doing. Wasn’t that part of the ’84 convention platform? Leahy, Dodd, and Jim righting the wrongs of the bloodthirsty republican goons. I like it. Except it is not true.