A-ha! Now the Shoe is on the Other Hand!
Howard Kurtz in Media Notes sums up exactly what I find humorously interesting about this whole "Arab-company-taking-over-U.S.-ports" firestorm.
He writes before his daily media roundup, "For more than four years, whenever opponents have tried to make complicated arguments about national security -- why we need a Patriot Act that doesn't obliterate civil liberties, why we need electronic surveillance that isn't illegal, why we need to support the troops but change their mission in Iraq -- the Bush administration has had a ready response:
9/11.
War on terror.
Safety of the American people.
"It's been very difficult for Democrats to trump such gut-level appeals with two- or three-step explanations about why of course they support stamping out terrorists but maybe looking into everyone's library records (or fill in the blank) isn't the best way to achieve that.
Now the rhetorical shoe is on the other foot. Now Bush has got the complicated argument to make on the Dubai port deal while critics -- of both parties, amazingly enough--say putting a company from the Arab country that was home to two of the hijackers in charge of American ports is an invitation to disaster."
At first, I had the same gut-level concerns, but I actually came around to seeing there's no way we can't allow this deal to happen - as long as those responsible for reviewing these sort of things have made sure all the "i"s are dotted and everything is in order.
Can't promote capitalism abroad when you selectively practice it at home. This was compounded as I read that we already have ports operated by companies from other countries, including China (with whom we have butted heads a few times diplomatically). In addition, port security would be handled by the US Coast Guard and US Customs, no matter who owns the port. And most likely American unionized dockworkers would be doing the day-t0-day heavy lifting.
I understand the concerns, but in this case I agree with the deal going through - although the Bushies have mangled this politically with word of secret negotiations and the president out of the loop until just a few days ago.
Turning the Tables [Wash Post]
Bush Says Ports Deal Not a Threat to Security [AP via Yahoo!]
He writes before his daily media roundup, "For more than four years, whenever opponents have tried to make complicated arguments about national security -- why we need a Patriot Act that doesn't obliterate civil liberties, why we need electronic surveillance that isn't illegal, why we need to support the troops but change their mission in Iraq -- the Bush administration has had a ready response:
9/11.
War on terror.
Safety of the American people.
"It's been very difficult for Democrats to trump such gut-level appeals with two- or three-step explanations about why of course they support stamping out terrorists but maybe looking into everyone's library records (or fill in the blank) isn't the best way to achieve that.
Now the rhetorical shoe is on the other foot. Now Bush has got the complicated argument to make on the Dubai port deal while critics -- of both parties, amazingly enough--say putting a company from the Arab country that was home to two of the hijackers in charge of American ports is an invitation to disaster."
At first, I had the same gut-level concerns, but I actually came around to seeing there's no way we can't allow this deal to happen - as long as those responsible for reviewing these sort of things have made sure all the "i"s are dotted and everything is in order.
Can't promote capitalism abroad when you selectively practice it at home. This was compounded as I read that we already have ports operated by companies from other countries, including China (with whom we have butted heads a few times diplomatically). In addition, port security would be handled by the US Coast Guard and US Customs, no matter who owns the port. And most likely American unionized dockworkers would be doing the day-t0-day heavy lifting.
I understand the concerns, but in this case I agree with the deal going through - although the Bushies have mangled this politically with word of secret negotiations and the president out of the loop until just a few days ago.
Turning the Tables [Wash Post]
Bush Says Ports Deal Not a Threat to Security [AP via Yahoo!]
posted by JP at 9:08 AM
2 Comments:
There's been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about how dems and liberals have to be careful, because in piling on the administration about this issue they risk sounding like the kind of xenophobic bigots they've derided for so many years. And to be fair there is truth in that statement--just because they're Arabs doesn't mean they're automatically evil.
But that's assuming that the reactions are all due to xenophobia or bigotry, which is a bad assumption. As with most things that have embarassd the administration in the last few months, the main problem here is one of secrecy, of lack of transparency. Nobody knew about this deal, apparently not even the president, before it was practically done--and Congress is supposed to have oversight. The end-arounding of congress has become standard operating procedure for the Bush administration, and Congress is getting sick of it, for whatever reason.
Also, the fact that Bush didn't know about the deal but has threatened to veto anything invalidating it--well, that's just weird. It gives the appearance of impropriety, whether there is actually any or not. Pro-business? Michael Moore was right about the Bush family ties? Simple misunderstanding? We just don't know. It should raise a red flag, and should result in an investigation.
If the investigation reveals that everything's on the up and up, fine--but you still have to wonder why, if everything was fine, they didn't go through the regular channels. What, you thought Congress was so busy, you just didn't want to worry them with it?
The president's (or his handlers') desire to take over powers reserved for congress is the big issue here, in my view. And it's only getting bigger the more that this kind of thing happens.
So if the Dems must pile on, pile on that. Or just stand back and watch the xenophobe bigots in the president's own party eat their own. I'll bring the popcorn.
...
Oh, as an added bonus, one of the big reasons the administration gave for not working with a democratically elected Hamas was that they refused to recognize Israel. Neither does the UAE. If you can spin those two things together without sounding strained, you're better on the wheel than Demi Moore.
Here's what I was trying to say, but better:
So why did this latest case of sloppiness and indifference finally catch the public's attention? Because this time the administration has become a victim of its own campaign of fearmongering and insinuation. The administration successfully linked Iraq and 9/11 in public perceptions through a campaign of constant insinuation and occasional outright lies. In the process, it also created a state of mind in which all Arabs were lumped together in the camp of evildoers. Osama, Saddam — what's the difference?
But more to the point, after years of systematically suggesting that Arabs who didn't attack us are the same as Arabs who did, the administration can't suddenly turn around and say, "But these are good Arabs."
Make everybody scared of everything, even things they don't need to be? Mission Accomplished.
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