The "debate" about the ports deal on SI was not very interesting compared to Free Republic, where the various splits in the Right got very full and free expression.
On SI, except for me, the Right pretty much took two sides, either siding reflexively with the administration that opposition to the deal is anti-Arab hysteria, or the Wall Street Journal argument that this is xenophobia and anti-globalization.
While the first people to sound the alarm, Michael Savage and Michelle Malkin, fall clearly in the xenophobic hysteria camp, my perception is that the members of Congress took the same view I am taking, that some industries are too sensitive, too essential to national security, to apply a pure free market approach.
We don't let non-US-owned companies bid on the most sensitive defense contracts. Our ports are essential to homeland security, and yet they are notoriously insecure.
Is there an anti-globalization backlash? Sure, there is now and always will be. Just as there is an anti-immigration backlash. Bush is famously deaf to the people who oppose illegal immigration, too, so he's already lost their confidence on this issue, long ago. They call him Jorge and Senor Arbusto, things like that.
(BTW -- I don't much mind illegal immigration. I don't think mopping floors and mowing lawns is a security issue.) |
