Justin Raimondo weighs in again on the racist and irrational arguments that liberals and conservatives are pasting together against the acquistion of UK company Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation by the Dubai-based, international company Dubai Ports World. I think he wins another round.
James Leroy Wilson of Independent Country wrote:
A blogger is supposed to manufacture an opinion about this, but I confess I know nothing about the operation of ports, including how inspections take place, tariffs collected, etc. But I have developed a rule (which I may discuss in a future post if I remember): Always assume that Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and James Sensenbrenner are always wrong on everything. I don’t know about McCain and Sensenbrenner, but I do know that Clinton is opposed to this purchase. Therefore, it’s probably a good idea. Then again, another rule to follow is that what the Bush Administration does is always evil, stupid, or both. So I’m conflicted.
I share the conflict. But the angle that does interest me about the Dems’ intense fury concerning this but not other Bush contracts comes from J. Alva Scruggs, a commenter at Michael J. Smith’s:
I’m not so certain that bigotry and opportunistic terror tub thumping explain it all. I think it’s also pique about a friend of the Bush family getting lucrative openings and influence in port cities. The Dems consider the big cities their turf. They need to retain some seats to be at all useful in their game.
That smells right to me. Not so much the part about “retaining seats” to be “useful in their game,” since they all seem to be playing the same game, but perhaps a matter of personal friends being cut out of the deal.
Updated 24 February: Alt.Muslim goes into some detail about port operations and the free trade agreement that was on Condoleezza Rice’s list of things to discuss when she visited the UAE yesterday on her sanctions for starvation tour. Her trip has concluded in a failure to find Arab leaders willing to help her create a humanitarian crisis in Palestine.