I visited the copper statue in New York harbor yesterday. Nearly six years after New York was attacked, security is very high. Prior to boarding the ferry for Liberty Island, one must undergo a metal detector procedure. Once on board one is told to report anything suspicious. On route, one is escorted by a Coast Guard boat with two mounted machine guns. Liberty Island is a misnomer. To see the Statue, one must wait in yet another security line and get sniffed by smell detectors from GE. No cameras or cell phones are permitted to be used in the security area. After a two hour security wait one can witness that she has walled out tourists with bulletproof glass. No tourist can climb higher than her feet. Like the green coat of corrosion on the Statue, Liberty Island and its gateways have acquired security tents antithetical to the freed woman with broken shackles at her feet.

Her inscription is also an anachronism. We are stuck in an anti-immigrant rut as we were in World War II when citizens and resident aliens were detained on nearby Ellis Island, former gateway to 12 million Americans.

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

No. The torch is extinguished. The golden door is shut. Keep your tired, poor, wretched, homeless and tempest-tost. We are a new self-important Land of storied pomp that has forgotten its genesis.

I deem her the Statue of Security.

To France. And what happened to the Dems, who are all the time telling us that we should be doing things the way the Europeans do?

The Democrats are stuck in a punitive, soak-the-rich time warp with class warfare written all over it.

Despite all the current polls, I still believe their Walter Mondale approach to taxes and their McGovernite soft-on-the terror war approach is a losing combination that will doom the Dems next year.

Mickey Kaus (who has been on fire over the immigration fiasco) says that Republican voters aren’t as stupid as the administration thinks (or at least hopes).

I hope he’s right, and it certainly seems to be the case. Bush needs to get a simple message: build a fence, and then get back to us.

Maybe John McCain can get the “undocumented workers” to send him money:

McCain

Maybe John McCain can get the “undocumented workers” to send him money:

McCain

Maybe John McCain can get the “undocumented workers” to send him money:

McCain

Brit Michael Hodges can’t wait for London to become Londonistan.

In an Islamic London, Christians and Jews

And how much would recent history have changed, had Ahhhhnuld, instead of calling the Sacramento nannies “girlie men,” called them “epicenes“?

I’d be willing to help, too. Anything to ease the burden on our busy Congresspeople. Maybe we could think of it as “doing the jobs that Congressmen won’t do.”

I’ve noted before how amusing I find it that people call me a “Clinton hater” or a “Bush fan,” when I think that my take on both presidents is reasonably objective. When I criticize Bill (and Hillary) Clinton as corrupt, this is the kind of thing that I’m talking about. The Clinton years were this kind of thing non stop, but it was rarely reported, or if it was, the press (who were in love with both of them) bent over backwards to excuse it.