Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Fear And Bigotry Bite Bush On The Ass

The Bush administration has given the okay for a company owned by the United Arab Emirates to take control of six major US ports on the east coast. President Bush said Tuesday that he would veto any effort by the Congress to halt the sale and Tom Ridge went on Hardball to inform us that we shouldn’t worry about the security aspect of the sale because it was approved by Donald “I can lose a war but good” Rumsfeld, Condi “I ignored the PDB that said Osama bin Laden determined to strike inside US” Rice, Alberto “torturing people will make us friends around the world, I’m sure of it” Gonzales and Michael “forget terrorism, I can’t even handle a hurricane” Chertoff. Yeah, I feel better already.

Besides the fact that support for this sale makes Bush look incompetent and uninterested in protecting the homeland, this is a political blunder of epic proportions. Not only are Bill Frist, Denny Hastert and Curt Weldon speaking out against the sale, but even right wing radio is flooded with calls, few if any in support of the sale. It’s hard to imagine that Karl Rove would make such an oversight, relying as he does on the bigotry and fear of Bush’s most fervent supporters. The Bush administration has spent six years instilling fear of terrorism and fueling hatred of Arabs and Muslims within their base, they shouldn’t be surprised now that these same people are upset at the prospect of an Arab country taking control of American ports. Any idiot could have seen this coming, even Rove and Bush, which leaves the impression that there must be something in this secret deal worth taking this heat over.

With Bush’s support hovering in the high 30% range and his base up in arms about this sale, we may yet see the President's support reach new all time lows. Republicans seeking reelection this year might not want to be seen at the President's side on this one, lest they should be tagged by their Democratic opponents as “soft on terrorism.” But if we’ve learned anything from the last six years of Bush rule, it’s that they can always find a way to stop the lapdogs in Congress from yipping. We should start a pool on how long it will be before secret meetings with the White House result in full support of the sale by Hastert, Frist, Weldon and all the rest of the well-trained Republican rank and file. The real trick will be getting Joe Blow and Jane Nobrain to embrace Arab control of American ports. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it will be a trick worth watching.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I honestly almost never watch Fox News but last night I had to ~ O'Reilly and Hannity were in rare form ~ selling the Port deal to the brain-dead who watch Rupert the Pig's propaganda machine. O'Reilly was incensed when the person he was interviewing accused him of being a mouthpiece for the Bush Administration. What's new, same old song and dance in the world of "In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king."

1:00 PM  
Blogger Neil Shakespeare said...

Oh yeah. You've got to wonder if Karl didn't let this slip by, knowing it would be a godsend to Republican candidates in the fall looking for an issue they can distance themselves from Bush on. And here it is!

7:35 PM  
Blogger Rory Shock said...

Another excellent post. One thing that's not happening much as far as I can see ... and I probably just haven't found the right source ... we're not seeing ahead of time the money paths ... these things all have economic explanations that become obvious and the butt of jokes after revelation of some new head-spinner ... here we have the Snow/Corporate connection, but even that is probably not the whole economic picture ... someone needs to come up with a comrehensive "diagram" of the interplay of financial interests causing the present day madness ... wow, that would be intricate ... anyway after all is said and done ... it's just a bunch of naked apes run amok

8:45 PM  
Blogger The Local Crank said...

It's admittedly pretty funny to watch the Republicans turn on each other like sharks in a tank full of chum over selling US Ports to terrorist-enabling states like the UAE. Of course, no one is talking about the larger issue here; namely, is it really a good idea to have ANY foreign gov't or corporation controlling vital American infrastructure? If foreigners control our factories, airlines, railroads, ports, etc., what's the diffence between the US and the Belgian Congo circa 1890?

9:05 PM  
Blogger The (liberal)Girl Next Door said...

Rory--That would indeed be one tangled web.

Local Crank--And even bigger than foreign owned infrastructure is the foreign takeover of most of our biggest companies. When we have few American owned corporations left to sell off, where are all those foreign held dollars going to be spent? Public lands, utilities, the US government? It's not a good road we are on.

11:36 PM  
Blogger The Local Crank said...

I agree, Liberal Girl (that sounds like a superhero name). Apparently, Ross Perot was right all along; who'd a thunk?

7:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

but did you watch the other shows on Fox?
They systematically went through why the deal was OK, of course leaving out key pieces of info.
It was truley designed to keep midle america from becomming to scared.
But isn't this good for the republicans running for Congress?
All they have to do is come out for or against the president depending on how the people in their constituancy are feeling?
They can come out strong for security either way.

9:22 AM  

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