‘We Dug It, We Own It’
In 1978, the Carter administration made a deal with General Omar Torrijos, the uniformed socialist strongman who had seized power in Panama, to abandon America’s crown jewel. The Panama Canal had been built with over a decade of labor and half a billion of early twentieth century dollars by American engineers and visionaries who succeeded where the British and the French had failed, in the process they created a new country, Panama, and new trade routes. Jimmy Carter had run for office promising to oppose a surrender of the canal. As with most of his policies, he turned out to have been lying. Even though the majority of Americans opposed the giveaway, Carter, Democrat Senate Majority Leader and KKK leader Robert Byrd, teamed up with GOP Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker, the worst RINO in Senate history, to conduct the surrender. This move would cost Baker his chances at a presidential nomination. While Reagan’s election triumph tends to be credited to the economy, there is no doubt...