Distancing from Bush

With Republicans and Democrats finally agreeing on something -- that having an emir-ruled Islamic country constantly under threat of being overthrown by radicals running the ports in this country is a horrifically bad idea -- one has to wonder how on earth the usually savvy Bush Administration got involved with something so dumb.

Once you start seeing Republicans on Capitol Hill distancing themselves from Bush, something is going on.

Never mind how utterly hilarious it is to see Congressional Republicans talking about checks and balances now, when they didn't care about it in the context of the warrantless wiretaps, what is really going on?

Occam's Razor, combined with the pattern of the Bush Administration, indicates that this is just another case of Bush cronyism:

The administration signed off on the deal after it was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a closed interagency panel chaired by Treasury Secretary John Snow.

Snow was chairman of CSX, a rail firm that, according to the New York Daily News, sold its own port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, a year after Snow left to head Treasury. The Treasury Department didn't respond to a request for comment.

Last month, Bush nominated David Sanborn, who heads DP World's European and Latin American operations, to head the U.S. Maritime Administration. Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said Sanborn does work for the company, but "we're told he had nothing to do with the transaction."

That would make sense, since Bush has never cared about how his crony appointments look. And given the frenzy last week over Dick Cheney's hunting accident, it's possible that the Administration believed that would continue to overshadow everything else -- including this deal.

Last night terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann stated emphatically on Countdown with Keith Olbermann that concerns about these were completely overblown and that there is no more risk here than with any other country. And it's possible that he's right.

But we have long spent huge sums of money propping up the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia in order to keep that country from falling into the hands of jihadists; are we now going to do the same in Dubai, turning it into a Muslim version of Israel -- strategically vital to our interests?

Dubai may in fact be our buddy pal at the moment (though its recognition of the Taliban in Afghanistan, its position as a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Libya, and its history of transferring money to the 9/11 hijackers through its banking system have been conveniently forgotten), but when the Bush Administration wants to be able to spy on any American it wants to at any time, for any reason, in the name of the so-called "War on Terror", one has to wonder why Dubai's history seems to matter not a whit.

This is either the height of Bush Administration arrogance (which is still entirely possible), or else it is the sacrificial lamb that allows Republicans on the Hill to distance themselves from Bush over something easy, thus positioning them to run as separate entities from him in November. Or else people other than Bush are really running things and he was caught off-guard and now has to scramble to try to convince people that he's not just the executive branch equivalent of the erstwhile Pets.com sock puppet:

MoDo, today:

What kind of empire are we if we have to outsource our coastline to a group of sheiks who don't recognize Israel, in a country where money was laundered for the 9/11 attacks? And that let A. Q. Kahn, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, smuggle nuclear components through its port to Libya, North Korea and Iran?

It's mind-boggling that President Bush ever agreed to let an alliance of seven emirs be in charge of six of our ports. Although, as usual, Incurious George didn't even know about it until after the fact. (Neither did Rummy, even though he heads one of the agencies that green-lighted the deal.)

Same old pattern: a stupid and counterproductive national security decision is made in secret, blowing off checks and balances, and the president's out of the loop.

Was W. too busy not calling Dick Cheney to find out why he shot a guy to not be involved in a critical decision about U.S. security? What is he waiting for — a presidential daily brief warning, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S. Ports?"

Our ports are already nearly naked in terms of security. Only about 5 percent of the containers coming into the country are checked. And when the White House assures us that the Homeland Security Department will oversee security at the ports, is that supposed to make us sleep better? Not after the chuckleheaded Chertoff-and-Brownie show on Capitol Hill.

Regardless of the answer to that question, it's clear that Congressional Republicans are the big winners here so far.