What Quailgate Did to Portsgate
Washington Post staff writers, Jim VandeHei and Paul Blustein tell us that the Bushies were blindsided by the huge and bipartisan national uproar over the Dubai Ports deal largely because they were "consumed with the fallout of Vice President Cheney's recent hunting accident." Heh. And they said we made too big a deal about the day that Vice President Dick Cheney, or Destroyer Dick, shot a 78 year old man in Texas.
Oh, and check out the innocent Quail's side of the story -- via Al Gore's cable channel, via Shakespeare's Sister (video clip).
More on Portsgate
Nicholas Kristof argues in his latest column - The Arabs Are Coming! - that criticism of the Dubai Ports deal amounts to little more than scaremongering, George W. Bushie style.
Molly Ivins begs to differ.
Snippets from Ivins:
AUSTIN - So aside from the fact that it's politically idiotic and at least theoretically presents a national security risk, just what is wrong with the Dubai Ports World deal? . . .
We have already been warned that should we back out of the DP deal, the United Arab Emirates might well take offense and not be so nice about helping us in the War on Terror -- maybe even cut back its money, as well as its cooperation. This is a problem specific to the fact that we are dealing with a corporation owned by a country: A corporation only wants to make money, but a country has lots of motives.
Second, this is a corporation -- consequently its only interest is in making money. A corporation is like a shark, designed to do two things: kill and eat. Thousands of years of evolution lie behind the shark, whereas the corporation has only a few hundred. But it is still perfectly evolved for its purpose.
That means that a corporation that makes money running port facilities does not have a stake in national security. It's not the corporation's fault any more than it is the shark's. . . .
I have no idea whether DP World represents a security threat, but U.S. News & World Report said in December that Dubai was notorious for smuggling, money laundering and drug trafficking in support of terrorists. I suppose the same could be said of New York, but it doesn't sound pleasant.
Molly Ivins Bush Cheney Portsgate Ports Dubai Impeach Bush Empire UAE United Arab Emirates Ivins
