The voices in hank’s head say, “The UAE-based terrorists showed their moral and cultural superiority by plotting in secret on German soil. Faterall, Germany is the 2nd center of all world cultures –right after France. (Insert French phrase here about cultural superiority)”

hank continues, sensing some movement in the sleeping throngs, “The UAE-based terrorists of 9/11 should be prasied as Euro-centrists, not trashed as misguided freedom fighters in a Holy War. Besides, they were only reacting to the excesses of W, Bush 41 and RR –who are the real terrorists with their cultural and economic imperialism.”

hank concludes in a dismissive tone, “If you can’t grasp the complexities of this issue, then you may no longer direct comments to me. (Insert French phrase here from Les Mis)”

hank exits, stage Left –waaaaay Left. Sorry hank, the last line just fits so perfectly.

If you can’t read the volume of information and see clearly that outsourcing our ports to the UAE is a mistake, then sorry, I can’t reply.

Moreover, if you read through her insane ravings, her hypocrisy is evident. She screams about how money was sent to terrorists “from the UAE”, as if that means the UAE somehow sponsored the 9/11 attackers. By that logic, since they did the bulk of their plotting in, lived in, and received money in Germany, THAT nation should be banned from any future dealings with the United States.

Do you agree with that, Hank? Or is it only the UAE that should be held to these rules?

You would be a better President:)

Rove said today that “oh yeah , maybe we will wait a little on this deal.” It boggles the mind.

I don’t know hank. Joking aside, how can us normal folks know when a connection actually means anything? I’m told that the reason people go to Harvard (or similar school, I’m sure) isn’t for the education but for the connections. A rather inevitable side affect of having lots of money is going to be having business connections. And among those people you know, are going to be people who can do jobs that you need done.

It appears that the Dubai company has recogized expertise in the area of port management, it makes sense that there would be UAE nationals who have expertise in the area of port management. Here, again, maybe I should have the job?

I think it’s really totally bizarre that we have our ports “owned” by people who aren’t US citizens and I won’t say it doesn’t bother me a bit but it seems to be, and to have been, standard practice for quite some time.

DOBBS: President Bush’s family and members of the Bush administration have long-standing business connections with the United Arab Emirates, and those connections are raising new concerns and questions tonight in some quarters about why the president is defying his very own party leadership and his party in defending the Dubai port deal.

CHRISTINE ROMANS: The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment firm where President Bush’s father once served as senior adviser and is a who’s who of former high-level government officials. Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government-backed buyout firm, invested in an $8 billion Carlyle fund.

Another family connection, the president’s brother, Neil Bush, has reportedly received funding for his educational software company from the UAE investors. A call to his company was not returned.

Then there is the cabinet connection. Treasury Secretary John Snow was chairman of railroad company CSX/. After he left the company for the White House, CSX sold its international port operations to Dubai Ports World for more than a billion dollars.

In Connecticut today, Snow told reporters he had no knowledge of that CSX sale. “I learned of this transaction probably the same way members of the Senate did, by reading about it in the newspapers.”

Another administration connection, President Bush chose a Dubai Ports World executive to head the U.S. Maritime Administration. David Sanborn, the former director of Dubai Ports’ European and Latin American operations, he was tapped just last month to lead the agency that oversees U.S. port operations.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185767,00.html

And more interesting.

http://www.nationalreview.com/script/printpage.p?ref=/symposium/symposium200602211008.asp

Yes, yes, I know that paraphrasing Rush is a bit much. I find him beyond irritating for the most part but I was serious that in transcript he’s not so bad… it’s his voice or something. I *did* think it was interesting that he wasn’t blasting the port deal. Usually he’s big on border security, isn’t he? Well maybe not, I really don’t pay much attention to him.

Anyhow, the Reuters thing… is it the part about it being Bush’s “administration” that approved the deal? The article doesn’t make any mention of what level that happened at. All Rush had said was that the office in charge of that sort of foreign purchase made the decision. (Actually he named the office specifically but I don’t remember what it was.)

And I was thinking last night… Bush (or any president) has people traveling all over the world doing negotiations and every single time those people, from Condi on down, have to be able to look the local ruler in the eye and say that *yes* they have the athority to make the agreement they are making. The office that approved this did not overstep their authority, and even if Bush’s first reaction was “They did what!?” it’s going to undermine every single other negotiation happening on the planet if he doesn’t back up the decisions of the people entitled to make them.

And I wonder, I really do, just how *immediate* this issue has been for him ever since he was elected and he had to start doing business in the world. How many leaders said, “We don’t trust you. America always changes its mind.” How hard was it, really, to convince anyone that they could trust the word of someone from our country?

It could be Condi, it could be any Ambassador, a SEAL squad leader making a promise in remote north Pakistan, or anything. Each of those people know where their authority begins and ends and it’s utterly necessary that their decisions be upheld by those above them, just like they uphold the decisions made and orders passed down to them.

This is a very “military” sort of leadership model… this top down loyalty. Usually people only think about bottom up loyalty. It’s one of the reasons that military people tend to trust Bush when a voiciferous segment of the “left” believes that they should despise and hate him. And I should say that it’s incredibly constraining for those on the top. They can lose the trust of those under them so easily.

(And to take off on a tangent, it’s why those with military experience are apt to tear into Karpinski at any opportunity, refuse to call her by any rank at all, or admit she’s human. Failing to take responsibility for the actions of her people makes her pond scum. )

This may seem the worst sort of PR mistake, but I think there are other worse mistakes that would be made by reversing it.

But here is an interesting summary.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/coming-to-a-port-near-you_b_16218.html

You’ve evidently not seen either of them in person.

They are not alone in objecting to the port sales. You do realize that Frist is onboard don’t you? As well as the Governors of every port State.

Amazing what happens during election years, isn’t it?

And with Frist, you have to be kidding. The man’s gone off the deep end in pursuit of the Presidency; he’s trying to triangulate like Bill Clinton, but he doesn’t have anywhere near the ability.

#44 Malkin is “a song with a melody line only (actually I like that) but you qoute Rush?

“According to Rush (he’s not nearly as irritating in transcript, trust me) the port deal was handled and approved by the people in charce of handling and approving the port deal”.

Now there’s a statement which say NOTHING!
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nN22395330

Some in America (like union pensioners) think that those corporations need to work better at protecting stockholder interests and insure accountability of corp leaders. Some in America think the ruse of the Left in moving corps toward good citizenship, socially responsible corp investing and the like is wasteful of stockholders’ investments and erodes competitiveness. Just think of all those corp concessions given to unions over the years to avoid expensive strikes?

That spin works well in the DNC headquarters to whip up the anti-World Bank nutjobs, but like lots of investors I’d rather have corps act in the stockholders’ interests than cater to govt or national interests –like they do in Japan and Korea and Russia.

But we do agree on one thing: it doesn’t much matter where the company is hd’qrted; I’d say if safeguards can be put in place (like in-country storage of company files), the deal is a Go.

And please, no froggie lessons as reply.

First of all, I don’t think this is true. If the discussion here and elsewhere is any indication, there is a wide range of opinions on the port deal. Most of the honest debate is taking place on the right because on the left, the only question is “How can we use this port deal to slam Bush.”

Second, it’s odd that those who oppose the port deal but support same-sex marriage would hang their hat on the visceral reaction of a majority of Americans.

And given that it is a known fact that I am not conservative, I will point out for the record this post is motivated by my pure capitalist MBA self. Don’t give a da*n about what it would mean to deny the deal because it is an arab country. What are we going to do sit around and start denying business to people who are 1/16th arab. please. only color I am concerned about is green.

That said… I think this is very like the Harriet Meyers thing and should suprise no one that Bush will stand behind it. It’s in his character. He does it again and again. Cheney? Rumsfield? It’s not in his character to go with popular opinion on anything. It’s his character to dig in and stand firm.

Malkin, as much as I know people here like her, is a song with a melody line only, and it never changes. Lileks, who tends to be far more reflective about things, more of a close harmony guy, is talking about US public opinion… and I don’t think Bush cares about US public opinion. I honestly think he cares about our reputation in the world, with our allies and our enemies.

And as I’ve explained in the past to all various sorts of anti-Bush types, reputation is *not* popularity. It doesn’t really matter if *anyone* likes us so long as we have a reputation to mean what we say and say what we mean and follow through reliably, faithfully. He *can’t* being saying out of one side of his mouth that no matter what noise the anti-war folk are making that we will stay the course in Iraq and expect to be believed if he allows congress to reverse a done deal with this port thing. He can’t say out one side of his mouth that we want Iraq and Afghanistan free and prosperous, equals in the world with any other free country, and stick up a big “NO ARABS NEED APPLY” sign at our border.

This isn’t appeasment. It’s integrity. It means we can be trusted by our Allies and trusted by our *enemies*.

Clinton was abysmal. We’d start stuff in a half-*ssed manner and not finish. If things went poorly our policy changed. Bush the first wasn’t a whole lot better. People in Iraq acted on what they believed he would do in Desert Storm and we just… left. Left them. I think that Dubya is painfully aware of that.