Off the Bush bus.

I'm done with it.

Between Governor Daniels forcing Daylight Savings on us and the President's phenomenally poor judgment on leasing vital ports to a United Arab Emirates company, I'm pulling back my support of both of the Republican administrations that affect me. To me, they've become the Axis of Ugh.

My dad, bless him, says that if the Republicans "ran a horse turd against that S.O.B. Daniels" in the primaries in '08, that he would indeed vote for the horse turd. I have to say that I'm inclined to agree with him, but I'd need to know where the horse turd stood on the key Indiana issues of our time, like forcing Daylight Savings on a populace that didn't really want it – I wouldn't just vote for a horse turd sight unseen. (Whereas I know where the current governor stands.)

Meanwhile, on a national level, having supported this president through thick and thin, having given him every benefit of the doubt in the war on terror and giving that benefit of the doubt more weight than I would for domestic issues - after all, what good, exactly, is the future of Social Security if we are all blown up by Islamofascists? – I can't do it anymore.

Now, I don't care about the Vice President's hunting accident; we've all accidentally shot someone at least once in our lives. It happens.

But the Dubai ports deal is the last straw for me. It has the potential to undo everything we've accomplished since 9/11. Even though in all likelihood it wouldn't, on its face, the deal just sits *wrong* with me.

Is it racist for me to not want our ports leased out to an Arab country, even one that is supposed "allied" with us in the war on terror? Are there not plenty of American – hell, even merely Western – companies that could have leased the ports so that they don't even slightly increase the chance of people entering the country who want to fly airplanes into our buildings?

Am I just overthinking this? Am I taking this to a not-so-logical conclusion? Can the fact that it just doesn't seem like a good idea be enough? There's just something that doesn't feel right about the deal; I'm not alone in thinking this. Lileks says:

Because it feels immediately, instinctively wrong to nearly every American, and that isn’t something that can be argued away with charts or glossy brochures. It just doesn’t sit well. Period.

*snip*

… Doesn’t matter whether it was a deal struck between the previous administrators and the UAE; that’s not how the issue will be seen. And it certainly doesn’t matter once the President gets all stern on the topic and insists he’ll veto any attempt to keep the deal from going through. At that point, millions of previously resolute supporters stand there with their mouths open, uttering a soft confused moan of disbelief.

That's about right.

Anyway, like I said, I'm done with it. And I know that there are people who are much smarter than me who will try to convince you otherwise, but I am certain – and I am an optimist by nature, by the way – that we ("we" being the Republicans) are going to lose big-time in this year's midterm congressional elections. In our haste to clear out Congress of those who have supported this and other boneheaded initiatives put forth by the Bush administration, there will be otherwise good men who will fall victim to the public's growing "vote the bums out" sentiment. At the very least, the House will be lost, and I wouldn't be surprised to see the Senate fall into Democratic hands also.

Everything that the Republicans railed against during the mid-90s Republican revolution is now what they have become themselves - corrupt, insulated, hellbent on keeping power instead of doing what is truly best for the country. It's a shame, too; once you betray the trust of the voting public, it is lost for an entire generation, so take a good look at your Republican-controlled Congress: it will likely be the last you see of it for decades to come.