A large bloc of the folks who vote Republican are Bubbas who don't do nuance even worse than Bush don't do nuance.
Arabs bad.
(pronounced Aay-raabs)
Hindus bad, because the Bubbas can't tell them from Arabs. Some of the Bubbas have even lost jobs to folks overseas and are starting to wonder about that. Some are a little sick of high home heating and gasoline prices. Who to blame? Must be the Arabs. Buddhists? What? No! Arabs! They all Arabs. Arabs bad. Muslims (pronounced Moo-slims) bad! Bunch of fucking ragheads and this Flag ain't no Rag, Muhamed!
If you think I'm engaging in parody here, you do not live in a Red State.
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Another large bloc of Republican voters are the Christian Right. Republicans
know that a large number of people who vote for them do not differentiate between the "War on Islamic Extremism" and the "War on Islam".
Republicans have cultivated this racism. They have benefitted from this racism and religious intolerance. Now, even if there are important aspects of the UAE deal to this country (like guarantees against oil stoppages) and even if it is in fact good for the Republican Party, Republicans in Congress have to shoot it down... or face defeat in November. They built this and now they must deal with this.
Oh, there are some stupid liberals too.
Bill Maher: "I don't want Arabs running our ports."
Tell me a non-racist way to interpret that!
Bill also said we should get the Israelis to run our ports. He wasn't trying to be funny. He meant it. As to whether he was trying to inflame Islam and the countries who have most of the World's oil... or whether he's just stupid, we have no way of knowing. Other liberals, giddy with this chink in Bush's ProtectMerica armour, are saying some pretty stupid stuff. Yes, they're saying racist stuff. Shame on them.
Bush's problem now is that somehow, he's got the stupid Democrats and liberals AND the stupid Republicans and conservatives... on the same side of this issue. They're agin him!
The smart Republicans in Congress? They have to be agin him too. The smart Democrats in Congress? They'd be stupid to not be agin him also. (Lieberman, case in point).
Everybody has to be against the Arabs, even if being against the Arabs is ultimately wrong and unfair and might have reprecussions well into the future. Expanding on the "Pottery Barn Rule":
"You build it, you bought it."