Demagogue

First, there's this headline: Dubai Port Company to Divest Itself of American Holdings.

When it comes to the Dubai deal I think the real issues are the oversight, or the lack therof, and Bush's "just trust me" attitude. Not that it is a Middle Eastern country. Americans are truly delusional if they think that installing an American company is enough to protect our ports. This is a much bigger issue than that. We need to think a helluva lot more about port security, our security in general, and that everyone needs to work a lot harder to try and meet some pretty basic security standards. I know this might sound naive, but this should not be a partisan issue, folks.

Within the story is a sign that a weird wind is blowing in Washington. Check out this quote from Denny Hastert-- notice the way it is worded.

"We want to protect the American people," House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said this morning. "We've been doing it the last four and a half years. We fought a war in Iraq, fought a war in Afghanistan, stood up to the Homeland Security Department. We will continue to do that. We will maybe have our differences, but we think we're going to continue to" oppose the Dubai deal."

Did he really just say that "we" protected the American people from the Department of Homeland Security? (The 4 and 1/2 year comment was odd too-- but I suppose they can't very well take credit for protecting us before 9/11, can they?) I also think the "differences" Hastert is referring to are not between Dems and the GOP, but the GOP and the GOP. Namely, the Bush Administration and the rest of the GOP.

I wonder which Bush had the job of calling their friends in Dubai and asking them to pull out? (Did they even need to ask?)

The real downside is that we do not have Middle Eastern allies to spare, so I do hope that this doesn't hurt us in that department. It also exposes our the depth of our country's anti-Arab xenophobia. (Although Bush and the GOP milked that for all it's worth.) It will be interesting to see how things will be afterwards. Bush is going to have a pretty mighty grudge, I don't think he's going to be afraid to let them all know he's pissed that they didn't just take his word for it.

One other thing, as much as I'd love to see the GOP eat their own, for the GOP to fragment, it could bring the business of running the country to a standstill. The GOP doesn't really need Bush anymore and the worse his poll numbers the more distance they need. Just when we thought Bush's poll numbers couldn't get lower, just when we thought impeachment could never ever happen, this is the kind of thing that could be a real turning point. It remains to be seen whether or not that is, in fact, a good thing.