Our friend Nathan Wirtschafter alerts us to a report in the Jerusalem Post that Dubai Ports World (DPW) is a participating member in the Arab boycott of Israel. Wirtschafter sums up the dilemma presented by this revelation:

Participating in the boycott is against U.S. law and the U.S. Government issues fines, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to companies which honor the boycott.

More to the point, a company who boycotts Israel has the moral stain of supporting an economic expression of Arab hatred against the West. Since Dubai Ports World has a corporate culture which supports the Arab boycott, the corporation is probably not entirely "with us" in the War on Terror and should not be protecting U.S. Ports.

Obviously, Dubai Ports World cannot have it both ways. It's either a progressive, trustworthy organization which operates in the 21st century or it's afflicted with 12th century prejudice.

If Dubai Ports World really wants the business, perhaps it should stop participating in the boycott now, and when the port contracts come up for renewal, it can be considered for the work.

Alternatively, if President George W. Bush is absolutely committed to allow the deal to go forward, maybe the U.S. should minimally condition the deal on Dubai and Dubai Ports World ending their boycott of Israeli products.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 12:21 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Paul Hackett, the Iraq war veteran who was pressured to enter - and then to exit - the Ohio Senate race, has some unkind words for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and DSCC Chairman Senator Charles Schumer:

After the special election, the phone kept ringing, and I was soon being recruited to run against U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, a two-term Republican incumbent, by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), the party's point man for this year's Senate races. I was flattered, but I really did want to get back home, literally and figuratively. After seven months in Iraq followed by five months on the campaign trail, I had a good life waiting for me.

The calls kept coming. Schumer and Reid said, "Your country needs you." We Marines take service to country seriously. Leadership, service, commitment. [snip]

Schumer and Reid, the guys who said my country needs me, had a change of heart. There was never any explanation given. Schumer, in particular, actively sought to undermine my insurgent campaign, in part by calling up my donors and telling them not to raise money for me, which is like a doctor cutting off oxygen to a patient. He also worked through others to get state and local politicians to publicly urge me to quit.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 11:16 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Thomas Lifson has an interesting article today looking at the Islamist attack on intellectual property. One of the interesting points in the piece that dramatizes the lack of progress in Islamic societies vis a vis Europe, Asia and the Americas is the patent activity in the Islamic world:

Saudi Arabia, which only established a patent office in 1990, has not granted a patent in six years. Iran in 2001 granted only one patent. Egypt, home to a quarter of the world’s Arabs, is only now getting around to mandating the task of undertaking a substantive investigation of patent claims before granting patents.

The basic machinery of technological innovation is absent. Indonesia, with almost a quarter billion people, has totaled 30 patents in the last five years.

Lifson points out that intellectual property is the foundation of modern life and why it challenges the premise of the jihadist vision for the world:

It turns out that the very internet which is powering so much innovation and efficiency is being used to build a political movement to destroy all technological dynamism. These guys may be crazy, but they are smart. Intellectual property is the bedrock foundation of modern life.

Without the ability to protect (and profit from) intellectual property, there will be no innovation. Nobody will have an incentive to do things differently from the way they have always been done. The phrase for such a world is The Dark Ages……

At its heart, the Islamist vision is opposed to all technological change. Rather than a society characterized by continuing discoveries in medicine, telecommunications advances and new applications of micro-electronics to further delight the mind and body, these Islamists prefer (or think they prefer) a steady state society, roughly fixed at the seventh century, when Muhammad received divine revelations and laid down the optimal way to govern human existence for all time.

If they get their way, do they envision getting rid of all post-800 AD innovations? Or will they try to hold onto what exists, while allowing no further innovation? The mind boggles. Who will train the air conditioner repair men? How will they keep up with what already exists if nobody is interested extending in such knowledge? Everyone might as well just study the Koran in madrassas.

And that is the point.

Posted by John McIntyre at 08:37 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Rasmussen Reports released a poll last Friday showing Democrats in Congress favored over President Bush on national security 43% - 41%. If that wasn’t enough of a signal that the Dubai Ports World deal was a political loser for the President, the latest polls from CBS News and Cook/RT Strategies end any doubt.

The Cook Political Report/RT Strategies Poll taken Thursday – Sunday shows Bush’s approval dropping 7 points from their poll a month ago, 47% to 40%. CBS News (Wed-Sun) brings similar news reporting an eight point drop from their poll in late January to an all time low of 34%. And then Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll shows a five point drop over the last week to 43%. The RealClearPolitics Average of President Bush’s job approval is at 40.4% , but don’t be surprised to see that slide back to its low in the high 30’s as new post-DPW polls come out in the next few days.

Bottom line, this ports fiasco has been a political fiasco for the White House. The Cheney shooting accident was a trumped-up political story that inflicted no real damage on Bush; the Dubai deal is a completely different story. This seemingly obscure business deal and its impact could be the single biggest political story of 2006, and unlike Abramoff or Katrina or Scooter Libby, Dubai Ports World could be the catalyst the Democrats have been seeking for a big 2006.

Posted by John McIntyre at 06:50 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and chief negotiator in the nuclear dispute, told Time magazine:

"You may not believe what I'm about to say but I have to say it anyway. When our religious leader tells us that we're not allowed to pursue nuclear weapons, then we can't go after it. In the Islamic school of thought, mass murder is a great sin."

Now this is a curious statement, because if Larijani is telling the truth then he's either calling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a liar or a sinner for professing a desire to have Israel "wiped off the map." Unless there's some sort of Zionist exception to the Islamic rule about mass murder, that is. It's always best to read the fine print.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 05:06 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Read this column by Ralph Peters lauding the tireless work of our troops:

When you have the privilege of spending just a little time among these wonderful fellow citizens of ours, you can't help feeling impressed. And humbled. Certainly, they're far better soldiers than my Cold War generation produced. And they're doing a much tougher job.

If I could have a wish for the day, it would be that everyone reading this column could actually spend some time with our troops. Whatever your political stand you'd come away determined to stand behind our men and women in uniform.

Now contrast it with this lament by Bob Herbert about the all-encompassing evil of the military-industrial complex:

The way you keep the wars coming is to keep the populace in a state of perpetual fear. That allows you to continue the insane feeding of the military-industrial complex at the expense of the rest of the nation's needs. "Before long," said Mr. Jarecki in an interview, "the military ends up so overempowered that the rest of your national life has been allowed to atrophy. [snip]

The military-industrial complex has become so pervasive that it is now, as one of the figures in the movie notes, all but invisible. Its missions and priorities are poorly understood by most Americans, and frequently counter to their interests.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:50 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Israel's high court (reg req'd) finds in favor of Arabs in a discrimination complaint:

A special panel of seven High Court justices on Monday accepted a petition brought forth by Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which claimed that there were double standards in the financing and providing of education by the state, which were set according to areas of national priority. [snip]

"The government's decisions were flawed," said Supreme Court Chief Justice Aharon Barak. "They clearly discriminated against Arabs and damaged equal rights."

My guess is that you could spend countless hours searching in vain for any decree from an Islamic court protecting minority rights of Jews or Christians.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 02:53 PM | Email Author | Permalink

That's the question Dick Polman tackles in today's Philadelphia Inquirer:

We have seen this phenomenon before - a cloistered president, fixed in his views and averse to compromise, often at odds with political reality.

Democrat Woodrow Wilson was protected by a first lady who froze out even his closest aides. Democrat Lyndon Johnson raged against his domestic critics, calling them "communists" and "Harvards," and he wound up speaking only at military bases. Republican Richard Nixon was so deep in the bunker during Watergate that his own defense secretary instructed subordinates not to carry out military orders issued by the White House.

It's debatable whether the George W. Bush bubble is equally impervious. But these days, with the President struggling on many fronts, from Iraq to Katrina to the ports flap, even political allies and Republican observers believe Bush is prone to the bunker syndrome; symptoms include tone-deaf politicking, a refusal to fire or discipline failed subordinates, and a reluctance to acknowledge bad news that conflicts with core beliefs.

On balance, Polman's analysis seems a bit overly critical, but he certainly raises the kind of questions that many people, including me, have been asking of late about why the White House seems to be off its game. Explanations range from excesses of loyalty, stubbornness or arrogance on the part of the president to physical and mental exhaustion among the White House staff.

The biggest problem, however, doesn't seem to be that the White House is in denial or detached from reality but that it has such a troubled relationship with Republicans in Congress. Polman quotes GOP veteran Jack Pitney describing the current difficulty:

"This White House needs to adjust to the new landscape. After 9/11, they could pretty much count on the support of congressional Republicans. Today they can't. They used to go up to the Hill and just give orders. They can't anymore. They need to do less talking and more listening, because right now they're stuck with a wildfire in the conservative grass roots."

Robert Novak, who has watched close to half a century of interaction between presidents and Congress, finishes with a similar note in his column today:

Sen. Richard Shelby, whose Banking Committee has jurisdiction of the issue, was silent at first, but only because he was traveling in Europe. When he issued a brief, limited circulation statement last Thursday, it was not good news for the White House. "From Treasury's perspective," he said, "the [foreign acquisitions] process with respect to the Dubai transaction worked perfectly; from the Banking Committee's perspective, it failed miserably." He set hearings for Thursday that will not be pleasant.

The rest of the world may wonder how a relatively routine commercial transaction turned Republican leaders against their president. Frank McKenna, the Canadian ambassador who is leaving Washington this week, has cracked the code by appreciating the existence of two U.S. governments, one executive and the other legislative. That system requires more presidential finesse than was displayed in handling the Dubai contract.

I've already mentioned one potential silver lining from the DPW blow up: that Congress focus its attention and energy on dealing with the legitimate issues surrounding U.S. port security. A second silver lining may be that the White House mends fences and adjusts its attitude toward Republican members of Congress. It might make the difference in salvaging what has been a rather inauspicious second term thus far.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 01:46 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The theory, as it's being advanced by folks like Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin, is that allowing DPW - or basically any Arab country with even the most remote ties to al-Qaeda or terrorism, which I think, is another way of saying all Arab countries - to have access to sensitive and detailed information about how our ports are run puts the U.S. at additional (and unnecessary) risk based on the assumption that terrorists would have an easier time infiltrating an Arab-owned corporation than a multinational from some other country - like Britain. But as Mark Steyn pointed out on Hugh's show last night, Britain has had more people directly involved in committing terrorist acts than the UAE in the last five years.

Hugh admits he's coming around on the DPW deal after speaking with Steyn and estimable Robert Kaplan, both of whom think the deal should go through - though perhaps with a delay and/or more vetting. Now if only Hugh would interview some experts on port operations and port security as well.

By the way, three new commissioners were sworn in to sit on the board of the Tampa Port Authority on Tuesday. A few hours later that board voted 6-1 in favor of purusing a contract with P&O, the company being acquired by Dubai Ports World. Granted, these folks are members of the business community with a vested interest in the shipping industry, but they're also Americans who are intimately involved with port operations and think the DPW deal has been blown out of proportion:

"The national uproar is not correctly stated in my opinion," said Steven Pinney, senior vice president for operations with The Mosaic Co., who was appointed to one of two new positions on the expanded port board. "Very few have gotten to the core of the real story.

"It's been made out to be an issue of [P&O under new ownership] taking over ports or taking over security of the ports, and none of those are real issues."

Don't tell that to Democrats, some of whom are so excited about looking tough on national security they're willing to demagogue this issue as long and as hard as they can. Here's Sherrod Brown, current Ohio Congressman and the Dems' Senate candidate against Mike DeWine in November, issuing a statement today - long after it's been established by anyone paying even remote attention that DPW will have nothing whatsoever to do with port security, which will still be run by the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Service:

"In response to the proposed outsourcing of America's port security to the United Arab Emirates, Sherrod calls on United States Trade Ambassador Rob Portman -- a former Ohio Congressman -- to halt negotiations with the Mideast nation. Sherrod also plans to introduce legislation that would strengthen American's national security through trade agreements." (emphasis added)

Lest you think this is just some sort of careless wording by a snot-nosed staffer, Brown compounds the offense by posting this gem on The Huffington Post that includes some real nuttery:

The Bush administration has been outsourcing jobs for five years, and now they want to outsource our national security...This issue teaches us something many of us already know -- the Bush administration consistently chooses profits over people.

Please. Brown's shooting for the national security - trade isolationist bank shot, which is pathetic but offers a nice segue to a final point: the UAE is and ally and one of, if not the most modern Arab country in the world. If we're going to tell them they can't do business in our ports, then we're effectively tell the entire Arab world they can't do business in our ports.

But aren't we also doing more than that by establishing a slope that could get very slippery? China is a "strategic competitor" that operates government-owned companies in our ports. Couldn't they easily exploit the details of how our port operations work to the detriment of national security? Should we be concerned about that? South Korea is an ally, but couldn't a North Korean operative theoretically infilitrate a South Korean owned company just as easily as a jihadi sympathizer from Yemen could infiltrate DPW?

The flipside to this argument is that we have to draw the line somewhere and make judgement calls. I'm not saying we should be green-lighting deals for Pakistan to take over terminal operations at the Port of New York. The point is that we have legitimate concerns about port security that need to be addressed. But we shouldn't conflate or confuse the issue of port operations and port security, nor should we as a country have a knee-jerk, emotional reaction to a deal that could have long term foreign policy and economic ramifications.

Let me close by saying that I've always been a national security first-type. Always. People who've visited this space for any extended period of time know that to be true. Furthermore my initial reaction to the deal was, like most people's, negative. I remain totally open to being convinced this deal shouldn't go through because it will adversely impact national security. So far, however, I just haven't seen anyone produce any evidence to make the case effectively.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:06 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Everyone has been saying the politics of the Dubai Ports World deal is bad news for President Bush. Well, now we have an idea of just how bad.  Rasmussen Reports has just released a poll showing that Americans now trust Democrats in Congress more than President Bush on the issue of national security by a margin of 43% to 41%.  Only 17% of those polled favor the DPW deal, 64% oppose.

Let's stipulate something up front: this is a single poll taken at the height of both the Congressional and public outburst over the realization of the DPW deal.  That said, it does give an idea of how deeply negative the public's initial reaction to the deal was.

The debate in the press seems to have moved back in favor of the President's position, at least to some degree, but whether the public follows along with that shift in the coming weeks is another matter. I suspect there is a substantial block of people (on both the left and the right) whose opposition to the deal won't be shaken no matter how effective the White House is at putting on a full court press - if that's what they decide to do.

If the numbers Rasmussen produced on DPW and national security are confirmed by other polls, the political implications are pretty darn big. There's no way Republicans in Congress - especially those up for reelection this November - are going to stand by and let this single deal (irrespective of the merits) erase a 10-20 point advantage over Democrats on national security. Ain't gonna happen. Unless the numbers change significantly, there is no way Congress is going to let this deal go through as is.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 11:15 AM | Email Author | Permalink

More evidence that free speech in Europe is, well, less than free:

Ken Livingstone was today suspended from office for four weeks by a disciplinary tribunal for likening a Jewish Evening Standard reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard.

The three-man adjudication panel of the Standards board for England said the mayor of London should step down from his duties on March 1.

Admittedly, I know nothing about the Standards board for England, but isn't the core concept of free speech in a democracy that elected leaders who say terribly insensitive things are either 1) shamed into apologizing by the force of public opinion or 2) tossed out on their unrepentant "bum" by the electorate at the next possible opportunity?

UPDATE: Looks like I'm not alone - even some native Brits don't know about the "Standards board for England."

Posted by Tom Bevan at 10:44 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Here's the new cover of Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, via Davids Medienkritik. The translation of the headline and sub-head read: "America's Shame: Torture in the Name of Freedom"

Ray D. at Davids Medienkritik asks:

Torture in the name of freedom? Since when has America advocated torture as a means of promoting freedom? When someone is tortured or abused in a German jail in violation of established standards, does that mean the German government is torturing in the name of democracy as well? When illegal immigrants suffocate or commit suicide in German custody is that also in the name of democracy? It is as if the United States had never addressed the issue. It is as if the McCain bill torture ban had never been passed by Congress and signed by the President.

This is a dangerously cynical equation of two concepts. Particularly in a Europe where the general public is already so jaded that many no longer believe in the concept of freedom. Why? Because instead of reporting on the systematic violation of human rights in nations like North Korea and Iran the German media finds it necessary to exploit two year old photos of Abu Ghraib for profit (again and again). Never mind that Saddam's Abu Ghraib was a thousand times worse or that hundreds of thousands are starving to death in Kim Jong Il's gulags. There is no need for context in the world of asymmetric journalism.

And on the related subject of vicious anti-American press bias in Germany, Ray also dissects the way Der Spiegel massively distorted its recent interview with Karen Hughes.  It has to be read to be believed.

It's hard for the average American to comprehend either the depth or the scope of anti-Americanism in the global press and just how much our image suffers as a result of the tactics routinely employed by the likes of Der Spiegel.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 10:19 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Eugene Robinson offers an honest but stunningly weak defense of the ousting of Harvard President Larry Summers:

"Summers's defeat at the hands of the restive and determined Faculty of Arts and Sciences is being portrayed by his supporters as a sad triumph of liberal orthodoxy and political correctness. Really, though, it's nothing of the sort. Summers is being forced to resign because, as brilliant as he is -- and you don't become a tenured Harvard professor at 28, as Summers did, unless you're ridiculously brilliant -- he proved to be a terrible politician. That alone is reason for him to have to go."

Got that? You may be brilliant, forward-looking, well liked by the students and large segments of the faculty, but unless you're an effective stroker of egos - not all egos, mind you, just some of the most liberal - you're not fit to serve as head of Harvard or any other major university.

I'm sure Mr. Robinson would love to see the same logic applied to him: "Sorry, Eugene, you're a brilliant writer, one of the best we have. Lots of people like you, including much of the Washington Post staff and thousands of the paper's readers, but you've clashed with a couple of reporters on the "restive but determined " national desk so we're going to have to ask you to leave. You just don't play newsroom politics well enough."

Gerard Baker also tackles the topic of Summers' ousting in his column today, finishing with an eloquent and incisive conclusion:

"Ironically, in the 20 years since Bloom’s book American universities have risen to even greater global pre-eminence. Floating ever-higher on a sea of cash from wealthy alumni, they are able to attract the brightest minds from around the world. In science and technology especially, this has yielded great strides in research. But in too many cases these great inflows of cash have done nothing to alleviate the poverty of philosophy that characterises intellectual life at so many universities."

In the event you missed it, Alan Dershowitz wrote the definitive column on the Summers firing in the Boston Globe on Wednesday. Yesterday we carried two more great columns on the subject by Thomas Lifson and Thomas Sowell, both of which I highly recommend.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:07 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Former political editor of the Chicago Sun-Times James L. Merriner writes the cover story on Barack Obama for this month's issue of Chicago Magazine that carries the following hook: "A run for president? A VP draft? He says no. But could it happen?"

The article is long and quite good, but it's not online, so I'll just have to clip and enter some of the choicest quotes.  Merriner interviewed a number of Obama supporters and strategists on both sides of the aisle to get their impressions of the factors swirling around the junior Senator from Illinois and 2008. 

One camp of Obama supporters is urging him to skip a White House bid in '08, advising him to "pace himself" and "wait his turn." But Merriner points out:

"In fact, most of the successful Democratic nominees of recent history did not "wait their turn" but skipped over a generation - John F. Kennedy in 1960, Jimmy Carter in 1976, Bill Clinton in 1992.  Obama will be 47 in 2008; Clinton was 46 when elected, Kennedy 43."

Others are urging Obama to step up in 2008 and take advantage of what could be his best, and perhaps only opportunity. Again, Merriner:

"Some of Obama's supporters worry that he might miss his best chance by sitting out 2008.  Here's the hypothetical math: if another Democratic nominee wins and serves two terms, by then it's 2016, when, presumably, the incumbent vice president would seek the presidential nod.  Where would that leave Obama? He won't be a megastar forever."

Obama understands the importance timing and circumstance play in determining the fate of those who run for high office, telling Merriner, "Politics is fickle and dependent on a lot of things that have nothing to do with the merits of the candidate." This will undoubtedly be on his mind if in 2008 he's faced with the choice of accepting an offer to be vice president.

One issue Obama isn't worried about is his skin color.  Asked by Merriner whether the country would be ready to elect an African-American president, Obama says "yes" and then adds:

"If I were to run, the issue would not be my race, I think.  People would ask about my inexperience or youth, is he too liberal - there would be a whole host of questions there.  But I'm very confident I could campaign anywhere."

The best line in the piece comes from Vernon Jordan, who offered some classic words of wisdom amid all the political chatter: "I am too old and too smart to speculate about 2008. If I were in charge of the world, the first thing I would do is round up all the political consultants in the city square and shoot them."

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:00 PM | Email Author | Permalink

The conventional wisdom on the Dubai Ports World deal seems to have shifted in the last 24 hours.  In the blogosphere the focus has jumped from its initial target -- the agreement itself -- to a new and familiar one: President Bush.  For instance, Glenn Reynolds has decided:

I don't think there's any real security issue here, but I think the Bush Administration needs to launch a full-bore effort to explain what's actually going on, something that they still haven't really mounted...

I will admit that my knee jerked on hearing this story, and that I should have waited to learn more before offering an opinion. In my defense, I'll note that I gathered more information and changed my mind. Still, mea culpa.

But (and this is a separate point from the merits of the decision, or of my take thereon) it wasn't just me -- there were an awful lot of knees jerking on this decision, and the White House, or somebody, should have foreseen that. That doesn't get me off the hook, of course, but it doesn't reflect well on them, either.

James Lileks retreats somewhat as well:

The Bush administration may well be in the right, but they have handled this poorly – the remarks about vetoing any Congressional efforts to block the sale may have been aimed at Congress, but they splashed right in the face of the voters. The crafty response would have been to acknowledge the worries, assure a complete and total review and disclosure, and let the facts speak for themselves.

Meanwhile Tim Cavanaugh offers examples of some points he thinks Bush should have made.  Like Reynolds, he says the DPW deal "doesn't involve port security, and if opponents think there's a security risk they haven't provided any evidence for that."  But according to Cavanaugh, Bush is in trouble because he was caught flat-footed and unprepared to argue such straightforward points.  He asks:

Who could get out of this fix?

I'll tell you who: NAFTA-era Bill Clinton, that's who! Explaining stuff like this is what Bill Clinton lived for. Just think back to that Clintonian love of factoids, that congenial explanation of the benefits that you, the listener, will directly receive, that enthusiastic drive to get you to share the president's love of policy minutiae. Clinton was great at this stuff because, whatever else he was, he was a man of the people. He understood (as Bush does) the benefit of a barrier-free market that might leave, say, Dubai Ports World providing services to American harbors. And he knew that populist panics are stupid and almost always wrong. But unlike Bush, he realized that populist panics come from deep within people's hearts, and that you have to respect that.

Critics have raised some serious concerns over the DPW deal, and it is clear that Bush made a mistake by brushing off these concerns.  To be sure, there is a strong opposition that will not be won over so easily on the merits of the agreement (see Malkin, Hewitt, Huffington).  So far, though, it is the pundits who are doing the backtracking, not the President.

Posted by Nick Nordseth at 04:45 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Why did terrorists bomb the Al-Askariya shrine in Samarra?

The obvious answer is that they wanted to try and set off massive sectarian violence to disrupt - if not destroy - the formation of the fledgling federal government in Iraq. We've seen a wave of violence and reprisal killings, but also calls for calm and unity, so at the moment it remains unclear which way things may tip.

The less obvious answer is this: the bombing of al-Askariya clearly represents a huge escalation and a huge risk by the terrorists. Of all the options available to them, you would think destroying a 1,200 year-old sacred holy site of Shia Islam would be near the bottom of the list. The real question is why the terrorists felt compelled to take this risk now.

One argument could be they were waiting for the perfect timing. Another could be that they've already tried everything else and nothing has worked. The Iraqi government is forming and the terrorists are running out of both time and options, so they turned to an unbelievably risky strategy that will either incite civil war or unite the country against their cause. This bombing smacks of being an act of last resort.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 10:48 AM | Email Author | Permalink

David Brooks is one of the most mild-mannered guys in the world. He's also one of the smartest and most thoughtful commentators around. So I think the tone of his column (Times Select) in the NY Times today on the reaction to the US/UAE port deal says quite a bit:

This Dubai port deal has unleashed a kind of collective mania we haven't seen in decades. First seized by the radio hatemonger Michael Savage, it's been embraced by reactionaries of left and right, exploited by Empire State panderers, and enabled by a bipartisan horde of politicians who don't have the guts to stand in front of a xenophobic tsunami.

But let's be clear: the opposition to the acquisition by Dubai Ports World is completely bogus. [snip]

In short, there is no evidence this deal will do any harm. But it is certain that the xenophobic hysteria will come back to harm the U.S.

The oil-rich nations of the Middle East have plenty of places to invest their money and don't need to do favors for nations that kick them in the teeth. Moreover, this is a region in the midst of traumatic democratic change. The strongest argument the fundamentalists have is that they are engaged in a holy war against the racist West, which imposes one set of harsh rules on Arabs and another set of rules on everybody else. Now comes a group of politicians to prove them gloriously right.

God must love Hamas and Moktada al-Sadr. He has given them the America First brigades of Capitol Hill. God must love the folks at Al Jazeera. They won't have to work to stoke resentments this week. All the garbage they need will be spewing forth from press conferences and photo ops on C-Span and CNN.

The more we learn about this deal, the more we find that the hysteria surrounding it is vastly overblown. That doesn't mean there aren't legitimate concerns that should be given additional scrutiny or that the whole thing couldn't have been handled better by the Bush administration.

Still, in situations like this - perhaps especially in this case - it's always best to listen to experts, not politicians, because the truth is that most politicians don't have much more of a clue than you or I about how our port system works:

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:44 AM | Email Author | Permalink

I am finding myself able to argue both sides of this ports deal. I understand what the administration is trying to do, and I support the President in his drive to engage the Arab Middle East, encourage capitalism and free markets, and promote allies and countries that have been helpful in the post 9/11 fight. And I also have a tremendous amount of faith that this administration and particularly this President takes terrorism and national security issues extremely seriously.

However, there is a common-sense factor here that says should a state-owned company from an Arab/Islamic country be managing U.S. ports? That's a pretty big hurdle in my mind, not insurmountable, but boy I'd want to be awfully sure.

And then there is the political aspect, which is a loser.

Taken all together it seems to me the original decision in committee should have been no. And there is no question that the White House totally blew the PR aspect of this and should have recognized the  political explosiveness of the issue and done a better job of consulting the relevant political leaders.

However, given where we stand right now Charles Krauthammer makes the point that the damage that would be done in the foreign policy arena to our relationship in the Arab world with nations that have been moderate and cooperative in the War, may have shifted the risk/reward analysis over to the side of letting this deal go through. And I think that is a very legitimate point, as I think you can make a credible argument that the original decision was wrong, but a reversal of that decision today would actually hurt our long-term national security.

But that does not take into account the political aspects of this decision and the President is going to have to do a very persuasive job, particularly to many in his base, that this decision will have no negative impact on national security. There is the very real potential that this could have negative consequences for Republican prospects in 2006 and that calculus would also have to be factored in to any macro risk/reward analysis of this decision’s ultimate impact on national security.

Bottom line this issue is not going away, and a deal that I thought was almost certainly dead 48 hours ago is starting to show some signs of life.

Posted by John McIntyre at 06:37 PM | Email Author | Permalink

This whole brouhaha surrounding the Bush administration’s green-light to a United Arab Emirates company slated to manage six major U.S. ports has nothing to do with protecting homeland security. Allow me to give it its proper name: Islamophobia.

This UAE company-Dubai Ports World—is just a commercial administrator. They are not in charge of security. That responsibility remains tight in the hands of our U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Officials. Moreover, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, (a multi-agency panel which includes seasoned representatives from the departments of Defense, Treasury and Homeland Security) has looked it over and has vetted the deal.

None of the Administration’s eager critics has furnished a scintilla of evidence showing the Administration hasn't done its due diligence. Add it all up, and I think what you’ve got here is a bi-partisan pack of protectionist politicians. Throw in some xenophobic anti-Arab feeling and you get our current state of affairs.

An amusing component of this flare-up is the dovish Democrat crowd’s sudden call to arms. Aren’t many of these vocal critics the same folks who opposed the Patriot Act? The same posturing chorus who attacked Bush and opposed NSA surveillance of al Qaeda phone calls? The same folks who want immediate withdrawal from Iraq? Why this sudden about face? This is utter nonsense.

The UAE is an American ally in an unsettled Mideast—and an important ally at that. They are exactly the kind of Arab country we need in our war effort and our ongoing, critical mission in the region—not unlike our friend Jordan. (In fact, the UAE is a lot better than Egypt and Saudi Arabia.) As the WSJ pointed out today:

“Critics also forget, or conveniently ignore, that the UAE government has been among the most helpful Arab countries in the war on terror. It was one of the first countries to join the U.S. container security initiative, which seeks to inspect cargo in foreign ports. The UAE has assisted in training security forces in Iraq, and at home it has worked hard to stem terrorist financing and WMD proliferation. UAE leaders are as much an al Qaeda target as Tony Blair.”

Could Bush have done a better job in handling all of this? Sure. The President made some clear political marketing mistakes. He should have opened up the black-box of executive review and shared it with members of Congress.

But in the end, America ought to honor its word. We have a duty to keep our promise and we should treat our neighbors fairly. There is no room for prejudice or bigotry here. And so far, no one has proven that executive branch security vetting is flawed.

Make no mistake about it. What is going on right now on television news channels, newspapers and the Internet is simple. It is called Islamophobia.

Posted by Lawrence Kudlow at 06:03 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Good question. Virginia Haussegger writes in The Age, "the collective answer seems to be: she's a powerful, sexy little fox who's smart, witty, made it to the top and has got it all sewn up. She's a bitch."

Actually, Haussegger is a quite a fan and her column is a rant about the shabby treatment Dowd's new book has been getting in the pages of Australia's newspapers.  Dowd arrives Down Under tomorrow for a week-long book tour. 

While we're on the subject, here's Dowd in this morning's NY Times:

Maybe it's corporate racial profiling, but I don't want foreign companies, particularly ones with links to 9/11, running American ports.

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. [snip]

As part of the lunatic White House defense, Dan Bartlett argued that "people are trying to drive wedges and make this to be a political issue." But as the New Republic editor Peter Beinart pointed out in a recent column, W. has made the war on terror "one vast wedge issue" to divide the country.

Now, however, the president has pulled us together. We all pretty much agree: mitts off our ports.

Dowd is the perfect expression of the rank hypocrisy and craven opportunism liberals are showing on the port issue (Harold Meyerson provides another good example). As Michelle Malkin writes today, "They're all profilers now." Next thing you know Dowd will be following in the footsteps of Senator Schumer and singing the praises of Halliburton as the answer to our port security prayers.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 01:06 PM | Email Author | Permalink

I don't know how many have seen the new cover story from the American Prospect, but it's an investigative report into Rick Santorum's personal finances and some of the expenditures charged to his political action committee. The piece, written by liberal Will Bunch (a reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News and blogger) alleges that Santorum got a break on his mortgage, financing it through an elite bank run by people who have contributed to his campaign. The article also alleges that a number of trips to Starbucks and fast food joints were expensed through Santorum's leadership PAC (America’s Foundation).

Yesterday Santorum disclosed the details of his mortgage with the Philadelphia Trust Co: it's a five-year interest-only balloon loan at 5 percent signed in 2002. Santorum also released the following statement:

"I applied and filled out all the paperwork everybody has to fill out when they apply for a mortgage and got a market rate. At the time of the loan, I made it very clear that I don't want any special treatment. The bottom line is that I want the same deal that anybody else gets. I don't want any special treatment, and that is the way an elected official should operate."

The Philadelphia Inquirer concludes with this:

Santorum campaign spokeswoman Virginia Davis said the senator never took any official action on the bank's behalf.

Interest rates in 2002 ranged from a low of 4.01 percent for a one-year adjustable rate mortgage to a high of 7.18 percent for a 30-year fixed mortgage, according to Freddie Mac, a federal mortgage lender.

A 5 percent interest rate "was in the market back then; it might have been at the low end of the market, but it was in the market," said Christopher Annas, chairman and chief executive officer of Meridian Bank in Berwyn.

Interest-only mortgages are "pushed aggressively nowadays by lenders and brokers," but they are generally for people who might earn more a few years down the road, according to Bankrate.com, a financial Web site. Homeowners make monthly interest payments on the mortgage for only a fixed term - usually five to seven years, after which the loan is refinanced or paid off, according to the Bankrate.com site.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 12:10 PM | Email Author | Permalink

This is a fascinating story that we have developing. So many times in Washington, it is so terribly predictable how politicians, pundits, editorial pages will side on given issues. To start, and this is not unimportant, I and 98% of the other people commentating on this story, and that includes editorial boards and politicians, do not have all of the facts. I wrote yesterday that “this issue is more complicated than the cheap political demagoguery we have seen” and I think the President’s decision to fight for this deal only proves that point.

Fair-minded and reasonable people can come to different conclusions on whether this is a good decision by the administration. The truth is there are compelling arguments on both sides and the policy merits of this decision are debatable. However, the politics of this issue are not complicated, and the President is on the losing side.

I have to admit I was shocked to see the President come out and forcefully defend the deal when the most obvious political strategy was to quietly back off, scuttle it or produce some kind of face-saving compromise. So on one level the President deserves credit for being willing to lead and defend a position that he feels is right against a huge political tide. However, the White House’s handling of this issue is pathetic and their knee-jerk reaction to fight back when backed in to a corner displays a tremendous amount of conceit and arrogance.

How hard would it have been to recognize that this was a politically explosive issue and bring in the Governors and Senators from the affected states as well as the congressional leadership of both parties to walk them through the decision ahead of time? Governor Ehrlich of Maryland said yesterday: “We needed to know before this was a done deal, given the state of where we are concerning security.” There is a certain amount of common courtesy and respect that was obviously missing in this process.

Given the concerns from both sides of the aisle including key Republicans like the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader in the Senate and the Governors of New York and Maryland, you would think the administration would have been a little more low key in how they went about fighting for this deal or defusing the controversy. Instead, Bush’s veto threat comes across as dismissive and imperialistic.

And again, none of this speaks to the policy pros and cons of the actual deal. The bizarre split in the nation’s editorial pages is as good an illustration as any to how complicated the policy aspects of this deal really are: The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times for, and The New York Times and the Washington Times against.

Without all of the facts I don’t want to pass final judgment on whether this is a defendable deal, but common-sense seems to tell me that we probably should not approve man