Yes, it is a PR blunder in that the administration again
underestimated the wild-eyed reaction from a political
establishment increasingly populated by modern Know-
Nothings.
Me - Yup! Once again Bush underestimated the hysterical knee-jerk reaction immediately followed by "instant" experts spouting all manner of wild speculation & disinformation as fact to our MSM who uncritically place that crap on the front page above the fold when they smell another chance to "get" Bush.
Dubai madness
By Jerry on Free Markets
Common Sense and Wonder
Stuck on ignorant
Our congressmen drowning in stupidity
(Dennis Byrne, Chicago Tribune)
Thankfully, we landlubbers in Illinois have handy local experts in port security and other nautical affairs to explain why letting a Dubai-controlled company operate American ports is so dangerous.
Adm. Dennis “Horatio” Hastert, Cmdr. Richard “John Paul Jones” Durbin and Seaman Recruit Rahm “Billy Budd” Emanuel are among lawmakers execrating against the Bush administration’s decision not to boot London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. out of American ports because Dubai Ports World has purchased the company.
Unfortunately, the explanation of the House speaker, the senior Illinois senator and the North Side congressman respectively for why this deal should be sidetracked is, to be charitable, airy. It amounts to “because Ports World is owned by an Arab country.” Leaving the rest of us to fill in the blanks with specious bigotry, such as, “Arabs can’t be trusted.”
The politically consumed Emanuel also cackled to The Wall Street Journal:
<<< “[The Bush administration’s] credibility on national security is not the ace that they thought it was.” >>>
As if Emanuel’s credibility on security is superior. My turn to cackle.
Has any public-policy decision ever been the subject of such instant, ignorant and demagogic response? Red-hot opinions flowed well before basic information on how ports are operated and secured was gathered. Days later, even after most port and security experts said the deal poses little or no security risk (security remains the government’s job), critics still haven’t explained how it would give terrorists any greater opportunity for smuggling themselves or weapons into America.
What seems to bother some critics is that it’s “another administration PR blunder.” Not that the deal is necessarily bad, but that it solidifies the perception that President Bush is uncooperative, insulated, politically “tone deaf” and the rest of that incidental garbage. Yes, it is a PR blunder in that the administration again underestimated the wild-eyed reaction from a political establishment increasingly populated by modern Know-Nothings. Or from the blogasylum wards where loonies suspect the deal is something more “nefarious and clandestine” than meets the eye.
If managing American stevedores in American ports by an Arab company is such a big threat, maybe Hastert, Durbin and Emanuel (HD&E) should open congressional hearings on the security risks of the Essex House hotel and the Helmsley building in New York, which are owned by Dubai-controlled companies. If Dubai is not to be trusted because it seeks neutrality in world affairs by dealing with both sides, then maybe HD&E will want to hold hearings on our relationship with Switzerland and Britain (regarding banks in its Cayman Islands). If Dubai’s ports are such a security risk, then HD&E should look into why the U.S. Navy’s most frequently visited foreign port-of-call is … Dubai.
A measure of how idiotic the attacks on this deal have become is the lashing that the Washington Post, always glad to jump on the Bush administration, applied to the deal’s critics in an editorial, “Port security humbug.” If promoting democracy in the Middle East is a basic foreign policy goal then, it asked,
“What better way to do so than by encouraging Arab
companies to invest in the United States? Clearly,
Congress doesn’t understand that basic principle, since
its members prefer instead to spread prejudice and
misinformation.”
By now, HD&E et al ought to be humiliated by the facts. The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, is a close ally, providing us with valuable intelligence and cooperation in the war on terror. Voiding the deal would make America a hypocrite on free trade and provide damaging ammunition for Al Qaeda. The deal conforms with the demands of administration critics that we should rely more on foreign policy than force in our fight against terrorism.
And this: When so many in Congress are fulminating over the “unitary executive” and the administration’s alleged overstepping into congressional prerogatives on security matters, here’s a blatant example of Congress’ own overstepping its authority into purely executive matters. Some lawmakers propose voiding a policy that was set by the executive branch in full accordance with the law.
If congressfolk merely had read the papers, they would have known that Dubai Ports World, along with a Singapore company, was in the hunt for P&O. They didn’t need big brother in the White House to tell them, so they have no cause to be acting like they were denied information that everyone else had. Maybe someone should open hearings into why so many congressmen are so stupid.
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