Once the red nutbag haze stirred up by "Shotgungate" finally started to settle, and "Portgate" erupted in its place, pols on both sides of the aisle rose up in alarmed opposition to the Dubai/UAE ports deal. Per
RCP's roundup, Democrat Senators
Hillary Clinton and
Robert Menendez are against it, as are Republican Governors
George Pataki and Robert Ehrlich,
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Representative Peter King (R-NY), as well as a host of others, including the majority party leadership in both the House and Senate.
King's comments were
not exactly equivocal:
"By having a company right out of the heartland of al-Qaida managing those ports without being properly cleared or investigated, to me is madness," Representative King told ABC News.
King cited "a number of reports about the port of Dubai itself, about weapons going through that port, to Iran, about corruption, and again about an al-Qaida presence. And I know there was no real investigation done on this matter."
"This is a classic situation, I think, of bureaucrats who just missed the boat here," he explained. "This went through. They were applying business as usual [rules] and they forgot it was post-9/11."
Former DOHS Secretary Tom Ridge
concurred, if a bit less stridently:
"I think the anxiety and the concern [over the deal] that has been expressed by congressmen and senators and elsewhere is legitimate," Ridge told CNN.
"The bottom line is, I think we need a little bit more transparency here," he explained. "There are some legitimate concerns about who would be in charge of hiring and firing, security measures, added technology in these ports that we'll need to upgrade our security."
Appearing on Fox News, Ridge recommended that "members of congress who have expressed concern should be given a look at the agreement to see who ultimately has operational responsibility and what kind of information is going to be shared with whom once the transaction is completed."
These are legitimate concerns and valid questions that quite frankly deserve some straight answers from the White House. Unfortunately, and inexplicably given the huge public relations favor the Administration could do itself by belatedly offering some of the transparency to which Mr. Ridge refers, its spokesmen, ranging from Attorney-General Alberto Gonzeles to current DOHS Secretary Michael Chertoff to SecState Condoleezza Rice, have all spouted the same presidential line that became so infamous during the Harriet Miers debacle: "Trust me." No details, can't talk about the deal or the process by which it was approved or what was and was not examined and considered and evaluated, but we insist that everything's A-OK anyway and you'll just have to take our word for it. This in a political landscape that makes the White House digging in its heels on this transaction akin to a wildebeast falling into a pirhanna stream.
Much has been written over the years about Dubya's penchant for simply announcing or implimenting policies and never selling them before, during, or after the process. This caused the Bushies enough headaches in the first term when those policies were almost always spot-on right because the DisLoyal Opposition's relentlessly dishonest, vituperative criticism would erode public support for them. But now that they've grown a political tin ear and developed other symptoms of "second term-itis," it has become seriously debilitating to the President's standing as well as the potential viability of his party's majorities on Capitol Hill.
What other conclusion can the reasonable observer draw when GDub stumbles into such a belly-flop on
national security, the issue he has owned despite the other side's most strenuous efforts to reprise the "hey-hey, ho-ho" days of Vietnam? Did nobody in the White House, including Karl the Great, really perceive how outsourcing management of our six biggest ports to an Islamic country - no matter how staunch an ostensible ally the UAE is - would be seen by the public at large? Or the effortless ease with which it could and would be exploited by the Dems?
Rest assured,
Michelle Malkin is on the money with her denunciation of the cynical and hypocritical opportunism of Democrats somersaulting into the pose of born-again profilers now that an opportunity to get to Bush's right on his core issue, and the issue that is keeping them out of power, has arisen.
Hillary was among the first in line with her faux hawkishness, and her fellow empire stater
Chucky Schumer delivered a GOP ad fodder for the ages when he said that he'd rather turn the six American ports over to Halliburton than let them fall into the hands Dubai Ports World. A stance that would last only until it was fulfilled, and then the old anti-Cheney reflexes would take over like rigor mortis.
But so what? Democrats are demagogues; always have been, and never more so than these days when they have little more to lose by doing so. That, to me, underscores how badly the Bushies botched this decision. Homeland security in general and port security in particular has been the Donks' primary avenue of trying to manufacture credibility that they've so irretrievably forfeited pretty much everywhere else in the terror war policy arena. "Secrecy," "plutocracy," and "arrogance" have been among the most oft-used Dem buzzwords when attacking the President. Now here comes the Dubai Ports World deal, in which Bush appears to sell our major ports to a rich Arab shiekdom without a second, or even first, thought, much less a backward glance, behind closed doors, and imperiously drops it in the public's lap and will brook no requests for so much as a cursory explanation. In baseball this is like a closer helplessly serving up one down-the-middle, over-the-plate, hanging meatball pitch after another in the bottom of the ninth. In tennis it's like double-faulting away a set from 5-love. In boxing it's like repeatedly punching yourself in the groin. In quail hunting it's like...well, you know. These are unforced errors this President
cannot afford to make, especially with his stewardship of the war already going up in Iranian nuclear smoke and
artificially-induced Iraqi inter-sectarian strife.
RCP's
Tom Bevan summed up what should have been no-brainer obvious to Rove & the boys:
The White House should have had the foresight to brief Governors, Senators, relevant House members and Mayors from all the ports involved to assuage any concerns and also to enlist their support. Instead, those very people - both Republican and Democrat - have come out attacking the deal, leaving the White House on its own defending what now looks like a huge political liability.
For going on three years now, the Bush White House has never seen these things coming, and then takes a vicious beating after they land. And their willingness to fight seems to run in inverse proportion to how worthwhile the cause is. It's like they have this masochistic streak that loves, in football parlance, to spot the other team three quarters and a four-touchdown lead.
Maybe that can work, on occasion, if you're the equivalent of Joe Montana. But George Bush's Joe Montana days are long behind him. You know how the Dems are also always attacking his competence?
Well....President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his Administration, the White House said Wednesday.
He
didn't know about an eight-billion dollar deal to transfer management of six major American ports to a Middle Eastern emirate that has been a financial nexus of our enemies? Isn't it his
job to know these things? Even just to not end up looking like a complete boob in full, garish public view?
This reminds me of the scene aboard Air Force One in
Independence Day when President Whitmore is informed by his {
ahem} secretive Secretary of Defense that yes, there really is an Area 51 and yes, they really do have a captured UFO stashed there. The look on Bill Pullman's face at that moment is absolutely priceless. Incredulity mixed with appalled, outraged anger at being kept in the dark about something so vitally important to national security. Admittedly, the UAE isn't exactly an invading space alien horde, and really, neither is al Qaeda for that matter, at least
not any more, but if I'd been Dubya and found out about this ready-made shitstorm in the f'ing newspapers, I'd have been more than a little pissed about it.
Instead,
he knee-jerkedly defended it:
Q Mr. President, leaders in Congress, including Senator Frist, have said that they'll take action to stop the port control shift if you don't reverse course on it. You've expressed your thoughts here, but what do you say to those in Congress who plan to take legislative action?
THE PRESIDENT: They ought to listen to what I have to say about this. They ought to look at the facts, and understand the consequences of what they're going to do. But if they pass a law, I'll deal with it, with a veto.
In over five years George Bush has never issued a veto. He didn't veto profligate appropriations bills, he didn't veto campaign finance reform (as he promised to in 2000), he didn't veto John McCain's "anti-torture" legislation that has signficantly tied the hands of U.S. intelligence-gathering efforts. But he will veto the outsourcing of U.S. ports management to an Islamic state? A veto that he is almost certain to lose? What in Allah's name for?
Go further through the presser transcript and it becomes abundantly clear that he really did learn of the Dubai Ports world transaction just this week and really has no deep idea of what it is he's defending:
Q The understatement today, and one of the concerns of lawmakers seems to be that they want more of a briefing, and they want more details about the things that you know, that have given you confidence that there aren't any national security implications with the port deal. Are you willing to either have your staff or to give any kind of briefing to leaders of Congress -
THE PRESIDENT: Look at the company's record, Jim, and it's clear for everybody to see. We've looked at the ports in which they've operated. There is a standard process mandated by Congress that we go through, called the CFIUS process. I'm not exactly sure if there's any national security concerns in briefing Congress. I just don't know. I can't answer your question.
Q It seems like - you've already heard from different Administration officials, saying, not in as strong terms as you have today, that there aren't problems with this deal, that the deal should go forward. But they seem to want more of a briefing. Would you be willing to give any additional briefings, either -
THE PRESIDENT: We'll be glad to send -
Q - either in a classified basis, or -
THE PRESIDENT: I don't see why not. Again, you're asking - I need to make sure I understand exactly what they're asking for.
Sounds to me like he's delegated a wee bit more than he should have on the more or less rubber-stamp operation of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Now trust me, I understand as well as anyone the desirability of setting up an operation just the way you want it and then putting it on automatic pilot to the greatest extent possible, but not where national security is so obviously and overtly and
politically concerned. You have to be on top of what is at the top of the priority list because getting caught flat-footed will cripple your credibility and perhaps get thousands more American civilians killed.
From the President we got, instead, this:
Q Why is it so important to you, sir, that you take on this issue as a political fight? Clearly, there's bipartisan -
THE PRESIDENT: I don't view it as a political fight. So do you want to start your question over? I view it as a good policy.
Q Why is it - clearly -
THE PRESIDENT: Are you talking about the energy issue?
Q No, I'm sorry, the ports issue.
THE PRESIDENT: It's not a political issue.
Q But there clearly are members of your own party who will go to the mat against you on this.
THE PRESIDENT: It's not a political issue.
Q Why are you - to make this, to have this fight?
THE PRESIDENT: I don't view it as a fight. I view it as me saying to people what I think is right, the right policy.
Does the expression, "Denial is not just a river in Egypt" come to anybody's else's mind besides mine? I don't know about you, but that exchange comes across to me as more than a little autocratic. "I've made my ruling, my decision is final, so sit down and shut up." Except, of course, that it wasn't his ruling; he's just been sent out to defend the folly carried out in his name.
But there
is going to be a fight because it
is a political issue, both precisely because of the President's own (Gosh, I hope Jon Fredersen, or whatever he's calling himself these days, doesn't read this site) bumbling.
Frank Gaffney tells us what we can expect if Bush pushes this fight he doesn't consider to be a fight:
Legislation will be enacted by veto-proof margins in both the House and Senate to block the DP World takeover of the port terminal and other management contracts currently held by the British company, P & O.
If so, the President will be unlikely to cast his first veto in a futile attempt to block the legislation. The deal will, therefore, be aborted.
Relations with the UAE, which has been helpful in some aspects of the War for the Free World post-9/11 — the factor that seems to have trumped all others in the secretive deliberations of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) about the DP World takeover, will be damaged unnecessarily.
If Bush meant it when he said, "It sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it's OK for a company from one country to manage the port, but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world," then I would think that the last thing he would want is a fight to the finish that he, and his good friends the Dubaians, can't win. But then again I would also think that if he meant what he said above, he would have made sure to be in the loop about the DPW deal and make a full-court press on Capitol Hill to sell it and pre-empt just such a sulfuric public reaction that should have been eminently predictable.
In any case,
it's not like the deal requires DPW to play by many of our rules anyway:
The Bush Administration secretly required a company in the United Arab Emirates to cooperate with future U.S. investigations before approving its takeover of operations at six American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. It chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.
As part of the $6.8 billion purchase, state-owned Dubai Ports World agreed to reveal records on demand about "foreign operational direction" of its business at U.S. ports, the documents said. Those records broadly include details about the design, maintenance or operation of ports and equipment.
The Administration did not require Dubai Ports to keep copies of business records on U.S. soil, where they would be subject to court orders. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate U.S. government requests. Outside legal experts said such obligations are routinely attached to U.S. approvals of foreign sales in other industries....
The concessions _ described previously by the Homeland Security Department as nprecedented among maritime companies _ reflect the close relationship between the United States and the United Arab Emirates. [emphases mine]
I'm not suggesting we give the UAE the finger by any means, but do we really want a "close relationship" with a country that "bans Israelis from visiting or working in their country, and [maintains] maps of the world [that] have Israel blackened out"? In which
sharia is the law of the land? That
had a warm relationship with the Taliban? And that, in any case, could be toppled by
al Qaeda next Tuesday, and plays both sides of the table like our other "close friends," the Saudis?
I guess for me the question comes down to this: What is so dadblasted important about turning over control of six major ports to the United Arab Emirates that outweighs the additional incremental hazards the new arrangment creates for our already overwhelmed HLS apparatus?
With that question now adequately prefaced, I'll address
my colleague's more Bushofilic perspective....
....tomorrow {
g, d, & r}
UPDATE...WELL, "TOMORROW": The
initial public opinion numbers are in on the DPW deal, and they
brutally prove my point:
Everyone has been saying the politics of the Dubai Ports World deal is bad news for President Bush. Well, now we have an idea of just how bad. Rasmussen Reports has just released a poll showing that Americans now trust Democrats in Congress more than President Bush on the issue of national security by a margin of 43% to 41%. Only 17% of those polled favor the DPW deal, 64% oppose. [emphasis added]
As the old Head & Shoulders shampoo ads used to say, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." Maybe if the Bush Administration had tried to sell turning over six major ports to a Middle East-based consortium, or even gave congressional leaders a discrete heads-up about it, they could have smoothed it over and not fallen into the political eel pit instead. But it's too late for that now. This deal is poison, it is leprosy, it is political bird flu, the public doesn't want it, and no Beltway Republican up for re-election in November - about 250 of them, to say nothing of GOP governors in the affected states, who have already loudly come out in vehement opposition - is going to touch this thing, much less support it, with the proverbial ten foot poll and a full radiation suit.
The President has one of two choices: he can quietly withdraw the deal, pending significant modifications to it to address security concerns at the very, very least, or he can fight for it all by his lonesome, get massacred politically, and likely still take his party down with him in the fall.
Leadership sometimes includes taking one for the team - particularly when the QB is the only one that doesn't have to worry about getting re-elected. Dubya got that on the Harriet Miers fiasco, finally. He'd be well advised to "know when to fold 'em" here as well.
