Uses of political capital

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John Derbyshire writes a bizarre and bitter piece in the National Review that seems to exonerate the clueless CYA postion being staked out by the administration. When the administration says another terror attack is inevitable, they are saying they've done everything they can to stop it, within political bounds:

They believe, in other words, that the American people would not stand for seeing (to take one example) Saudi visitors and students being asked to leave. Or, at a minimum, they believe that such actions, if initiated, could be spun by skillful operators to the great political disadvantage of the administration. Bush and Cheney probably believe that their war on terror would be vitiated by major domestic controversies, and they don't want those kinds of distractions. The fact remains: They believe that any strong measures — let me emphasize that I am talking here about things that are perfectly and obviously constitutional, and could easily be solidified into laws by act of Congress — are politically impossible.

Let me be perfectly clear: I am not advocating a border guard made up of the US Army standing shoulder to shoulder around the perimeter of the 48 states (sorry Hawaii and Alaska). Nor am I suggesting that we pay a bounty to anyone who gives information that leads to the arrest and conviction of a terrorist or their helpers. I am not that kind of hot-head. Here are some things we could do but aren't doing. Shy of that, I am offended that Derbyshire lays the blame at the base of the imagined shrine of political correctness:

We far prefer an agonizing death to the possibility we might give offense to the differently religioned. Here in what my colleague Florence King calls "The Republic of Nice" we have reached the reductio ad absurdum of racial sensitivity: Better dead than rude.

I'm offended because the subtext of his commentary is that the administration has its hands tied by a bunch of communist sympathizers ("better dead than Red" indeed). This is so laughable because the very people he excoriates for holding these opinions are inside the administration, if they are anywhere at all! What do you think animates Colin Powell's quest to prop up Yasser Arafat, if it isn't a desire to curry favor, to not offend, certain Arab allies? It's baloney. Forget those allies. Like Kissinger always said: there is no foreign policy, only domestic policy. Bush could do the tough things and still keep his domestic relations, his re-election chances, intact. He has banked an enormous amount of political capital. What is he saving it for, if not this? [P.S. Take a moment and recall Candidate Bush's call for an end to racial profiling of Arabs during campaign 2000. Then re-read Derbyshire's piece.]