March 1, 2006
Democrats Revel in “Portsmas”
By Tom
Bevan
Six months ago Democrats
were so excited about the potential damage to the Bush administration
caused by the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame’s
name, they began counting down the number of days until “Fitzmas”
– the day special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald publicly
announced his findings. As it turned out, “Fitzmas”
was a total bust. But “Portsmas” - a moniker that
describes the ongoing blow up over the Dubai Ports World controversy
- is turning into the sort of extended political holiday that
just keeps on giving to Democrats.
After five
years of being beaten silly by Republicans in general and the
Bush administration in particular, Democrats have finally stumbled
into the position of getting to the right of Bush on the issue
of national security. Last Friday Rasmussen
Reports released a poll - albeit conducted at the height of
the initial, emotional frenzy of the port deal - showing only
17% of respondents in favor of Dubai Ports World acquiring operational
rights to six major U.S. ports. Perhaps more importantly, Democrats
in Congress outpolled President Bush (43%-41%) on the question
of who voters trusted more on matters of national security.
This is no
small event. The Democratic Party has been chasing its tail on
national security and foreign policy since early 2002, lurching
from one incoherent position to another trying simultaneously
to project strength to the American public and to satisfy a virulently
antiwar base. Needless to say, the Democrats' act hasn’t
been very convincing – until “Portsmas” arrived,
that is, courtesy of an administration once again caught politically
flat-footed and tone deaf.
Politicians
from both parties were quick to posture over the legitimate security
concerns raised by the ports deal, but while some prominent Republicans
have pulled back and called for a calm, thoughtful review after
learning more details about the transaction, Democrats continue
to press ahead, trying to squeeze maximum political gain out of
an issue that has clearly struck a chord with the public.
One lesson
of the last two weeks is that political opportunism knows no ideological
boundaries. In the wake of “Portsmas,” Democrats have
been quick to shed any inhibitions about ethnic profiling or concerns
about our role in the “international community” to
pounce on the political advantages presented by the DPW deal.
As a result, some on the left are now sounding and acting an awful
lot like Pat Buchanan and the reactionary right.
Hillary Clinton, for
example, rushed to co-sponsor legislation with fellow Democratic
Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey to ban all corporations
owned by foreign governments from operating ports across the nation.
This proposal, which may sound good to the average American in
the current context of the DPW deal, flies in the face of the
reality that eighty percent of our current port operations are
conducted by foreign-owned corporations (many of which have ties
to government) and that there are currently no U.S. companies
large enough to assume the responsibilities of port operations
even if we wanted them to. The practical application of Clinton’s
legislation is that the U.S. economy would be brought to a screeching
halt.
Also, last Saturday
Jon Corzine, the Democratic governor of New Jersey, stoked fears
about the DPW deal by saying in a radio address that “dangerous
men, tainted blood money and nuclear technology have moved across
UAE borders." What Corzine said is technically true, though
it discounts the UAE’s significant cooperation in the war
on terror since September 11, 2001 and also the fact that most
of the Governor’s ominous language could be applied to virtually
every Arab country in the world and half the countries of Western
Europe, including Britain and Germany.
Port security is a
serious issue, and there is a chance, albeit a small one, that
Democrats will so vastly overplay their hand the public will react
negatively to displays of such rank hypocrisy. But with the Bush
administration standing strong on its support of the deal and
Congress initiating a 45-day review of the DPW deal, it doesn’t
look like “Portsmas” will be ending anytime soon.
Tom
Bevan is the co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics.
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