Has Pres. Bush lost his freaking mind, as Instapundit suggests? If this is some kind of a stunt to sucker the Dems into a political mistake, I will annoint Karl Rove the greatest Machiavelli of all time.
This is the biggest WTF moment he’s given me since Harriet Miers. No, on second thought, at least I understood that one. Threatening to veto any attempt to even delay an arab country taking control of our ports is just out there.
But the more I think about it, the more I think I dismissed one possible theory too quickly. He’s got to be playing to the Arab street on this one. I mean, yeah there’s some dumbasses in his administration but no one is stupid enough to believe the public isn’t going to go bonkers over this. In one stroke, he’s just about guaranteed the entire deal will get scuttled, not just delayed. He’ll alienate tons of supporters, but then he’s not running for re-election.
Which is what makes me think he might just know what he’s doing, after all. But damn, we’re talking serious misunderestimation if that’s true, because my lead theory is still early senility.
That’s a tough one. You have to assume he’s playing a deep game there. I expect there has to be more than meets the eye for him to threated a veto (where were the veto’s for the awful highway or medicare bills?).
That said, I’m generally against government action in these sort of cases. The govt ought not to be picking on particular private companies (Walmart, frex).
Of course the specifics of this deal do make me a bit nervous…
Look at the bright side. You live in Dallas now… the nuke will have to be trucked to you after it’s shipped into the port here.
Ok, but after finding out a little more about the issue I no longer have a real problem with it. Managing the business side of the port != handling security.
Besides, I was also a bit uncomfortable with all the ‘But it’s an ARAB company’ ballyhoo. A lot of it from people who’ve raised a ruckus against racial profiling even when it would have been logical.
Yeah; I’m still not hunky-dory with it but several military types once stationed there have spoken up to support the UAE as a worthy ally, not a security risk. I’d definatly trust their view more than the usual Foggy Bottom suspects.