Rethug Kristol Ball Gazers

When you hear dire warnings about Democratic foreign policy (or health care and global warming, for that matter) coming from Rethugs and neocons, please keep in mind these fearless forecasts about what would happen when the U.S. turned over control of the Panama Canal in December 1999 (h/t to Al Kamen's "In the Loop" Kaplan Daily column):

"If we do nothing, I can guarantee you that within a decade, a communist Chinese regime that hates democracy and sees America as its primary enemy will dominate the tiny country of Panama, and thus dominate the Panama Canal..." Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Rethug-LaLa Land), Dec. 7, 1999. Actually, numbnut, China sees America as its primary debtor.

"[the Clinton Administration was] allowing a scenario to develop where U.S. national security interests could not be protected without confronting the Chinese Communists in the Americas." Then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (Rethug-Miss-by-a-mile)

Well, here we are a decade later and, as Kamen points out, "Loop spotters placed for the last decade at strategic locations in Panama, Nicaragua and other likely invasion routes say they have yet to see any Chinese troop movements north toward Texas and Mississippi."