[mburbank]

"Now everyone with 2006-2008 ambitions can get in line an say they "did something. Bull."

While certainly true, it is in no way an argument that nothing is wrong here.

"The administration has a terrible record so far. Why should we believe they've made an ethical smart choice in this regard?"

Exactly.

Right now W is claiming that while he supports this deal with a Veto threat, he didn't even know about it until after it happened. Plausible. I think his administration involves him in decision mking as little as possible. But here's my question to you Kev. The folks who made the decision. Are they

A.) So positively stupid that it never crossed their minds that rightly or wrongly this would be a controversial decision, especially in this election season where anyone with 06, 08 inclinations would jump all over it

or

B.) Pulling the sort of bullshit "Make my friends rich fuck everthing else" type of deal the adminstration is frequently guided by. Not to be paranoid, but in the frenzy of denail right now (not only W didn't know about it, Neither did Rumsfeld or anyone at Homeland security even though ports are their domain.) Dick Cheney hasn't said he didn't know. Someone ought to ask him if anybody knows what hunting lodge he's holed up at this week.

If the answer is A, it worries me, because people as stupid as that should not be negotiating deals about ports. They might do something stupid, like forget to require the company to keep records in America where they can be suppoeanad. Like we do with the Britts and the Chinese. A 45 day delay so someone besides people as dumb as answer A would indicate can look over the deal wouldn't hurt, especially if it's people from Both camps that want to win elections.

If the Answer is B, then I don't trust that the deal was looked into at all, except in terms of who it made money for. Dubai has positioned itself in a very wierd and somewhat brilliant way, as a country and a commidity. Sort of like if Coca Cola was a company. I think we need to look under some rocks and see who in the administration gets rich the fastest if Dubai gts this deal.

If you have a C, D, E or F I'd be happy to hear them.

Like I said, I'd be way happier if the folks who would be King both R and D were this upset over the imperial presidency, but if they wrre they wouldn't want to be King. So it's sexy. You're waiting until this current batch of politicians is motivated by altruism and a keen desire to humbly serve their constituents? If this gets wider investigation and it turns out to be a tempest in a teapot I'll be fine with it. But answers A and B both smell rotten to me, even if they smell sexy too.