Tribute to United States Marine Corps.
I am what this year's election
pollsters call a "security mom." I'm married
with two young children. I own a gun. And I vote.
Nothing matters more to me right now
than the safety of my home and the
survival of my homeland. I believe in the right to defend myself, and
in America's
right to defend itself against its enemies. I am a citizen of the
United
States, not the United Nations.
I want a president who is of one mind, not two, about what must be
done to
protect our freedom and our borders. I don't care about the hair on
his head or
the wrinkles in his forehead. I am not awed by his ability to ride a
snowboard
or fly a plane. Nor does it matter much to me whether his wife speaks
four
languages or bakes good cookies.
What I want is a commander in chief who will stop pandering to
political
correctness and People magazine editors, and start pandering to me.
The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
shook me out of my Generation X stupor.
Unlike Hollywood and The New York Times and the ivory tower, I have
not
settled back casually into a Sept. 10 way of life. I have studied the
faces on the
FBI's most-wanted-terrorists list. When I ride the train, I watch for
suspicious packages in empty seats. When I am on the highways, I pay
attention to
large trucks and tankers. I make my husband take his cell phone with
him
everywhere — even on a quick milk run or on a walk to the
community pool.
Educate the children
We have educated our 4-year-old daughter about Osama bin Laden and
Saddam
Hussein. She knows that there are bad men in the world trying to kill
Americans
everywhere.
She has helped us decorate packages of books and bubblegum for our
brave
soldiers. And at night, we ask God to bless our troops as they risk
their lives
trying to kill the bad men before they kill us.
This isn't living in fear. This is
living with reality. We drive defensively.
Now, we must live defensively, too.
I am not alone. Professors and
political analysts have observed the
remarkable conversion of "soccer moms" to "security moms" since the
Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks. According to GOP pollster David Winston, "security moms" now
make up
between 11% and 14% of the electorate. The trend has manifested itself
in
increased concealed-weapons-permit applications among women; the rise
of
national-security-focused Web logs published by hard-hitting female
"war bloggers"; and
an upsurge in political activism by women on core homeland-defense
issues,
such as immigration enforcement.
Security moms are women such as Grace
Godshalk, who lost her 35-year-old son,
Bill, when the World Trade Center's south tower collapsed on Sept. 11.
Godshalk is on the board of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America,
which lobbies
for secure borders. She has made it her "lifetime job to put an end to
terrorism
so no one else ever has to live this nightmare."
Security moms are women such as Bonnie
Eggle, a Michigan schoolteacher who
lost her 28-year-old son, Kris, a National Park Service ranger who was
gunned
down by a drug smuggler at the U.S.-Mexico border in August 2002.
"I approach this whole situation as a
mother," Eggle said during a
Washington, D.C., news conference after her son was murdered. "I want
other parents to
know that these are things that can happen to your children. Our son
took a
bullet that he did not have to if we had secure borders."
And conservative activist Kay R. Daly,
a security mom of two in Northern
Virginia, warns that "A candidate who underestimates the security mom
and her vote
this fall may do so at his own peril. Hell hath no fury like a momma
protecting her babies."
Do the presidential candidates truly comprehend how fierce this
sentiment is
among ordinary moms across the country? Do they understand our demands
for a
president who will ensure that Islamic terrorists are kept out of our
country
and that criminal illegal aliens are kicked out for good? Will they
ensure that
our children grow up in a world where the bloody, severed heads of
Americans
are not a weekly occurrence on the evening news? Do they have what it
takes to
keep suicide bombers off our shores and out of our malls?
No clear-cut leader
So far, neither presidential ticket quite measures up. Judging from
the
touchy-feely-fest put on by the John Kerry-John Edwards campaign
recently, it is
clear that the Democratic Party still thinks it can win by wallowing
in the
Sept. 10 politics of grievance, entitlement and passivity. The
Democratic
presidential campaign is softer than a Kleenex tissue, when its motto
should be "No
More Tears."
As for the Republicans, I have
supported President Bush's war on terror
overseas, but he continues to fight only a half-hearted battle to
defend Americans
on American soil from hostile invasion or attack. Recently, the White
House
revived an amnesty plan for millions of illegal aliens, and the
Department of
Homeland Security retreated on immigration-enforcement sweeps in
Southern
California. It is clear that the GOP elite gravely underestimates the
wrath we
security moms feel toward Washington's fatal addiction to "cheap
labor" and "cheap
votes" at the expense of secure borders.
To paraphrase the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher: Gentlemen, this is no
time to
go warm and fuzzy. Security moms will never forget that toddlers and
schoolchildren were incinerated in the hijacked planes on Sept. 11.
Murderous Islamic
fanatics will stop at nothing to do the same to our kids. As they plot
our
death and destruction, these enemies will not be won over by either
hair-sprayed
liberalism or bleeding-heart conservatism.
Neither will we.
Michelle Malkin is a nationally
syndicated columnist and author. Her Web log
address is
www.michellemalkin.com