On the first deadissue.com post concerning the UAE ports deal, the question ‘why’ was asked within the thread and my answer was:
I was disagreed with, and we all know that during the first week of this story, unions weren’t brought up or part of the most used talking points from either side. To me, it seemed like the unions were pretty much all it was about at first, then the tidal wave of babble hit…and the unions were still the first thing I thought of. “Management” of the ports means just that, and who better to stick it to organized labor than a company run by foreign dictators? Indeed, it made too much sense.
Alas, the year 2006 is an election year, and while a GOP dominated Congress has exhibited a ‘reward executives/ignore workers’ tendency, to come out and actually say that they were against dockworkers unions would most likely be the final nail in the coffin. Clearly, the only way RNC talking points would contain any mention of unions is if everything else had failed to get the job done.
Karl Rove even distanced himself from the decisionmaking behind this deal with UAE, because the last resort (bringing up the unions) has a snowball’s chance in hell of saving the day. It’s been a no-win issue since the first story was written on it…regardless, the cult went ahead and served the kool-aid:
Chris I quote you,”We hate unions” is the motto of the Bush presidency. Prove it please !
Chris:
Don’t these spam comments get on your nerves?
No doubt! It’s an everyday thing, and they use words that I can’t just blacklist.
The port deal gets murkier:
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; A01
Efforts by the White House to hold off legislation challenging a Dubai-owned company’s acquisition of operations at six major U.S. ports collapsed yesterday when House Republican leaders agreed to allow a vote next week that could kill the deal.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) will attach legislation to block the deal today to a must-pass emergency spending bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A House vote on the measure next week will set up a direct confrontation with President Bush, who sternly vowed to veto any bill delaying or stopping Dubai Ports World’s purchase of London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Co.
“Listen, this is a very big political problem,” said House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), explaining that he had to give his rank-and-file members a chance to vote. “There are two things that go on in this town. We do public policy, and we do politics. And you know, most bills at the end of the day, the politics and the policy kind of come together, but not always. And we are into one of these situations where this has become a very hot political potato.”
I really don’t like where this is going. The Democrats have herded the Republicans into a race based decision that is going to come back to haunt the GOP. The Democrats are really the masters of exploiting race for their own political gain and this is a perfect example.
What’s funny is Liberals have been making all kinds of leaps of faith to link UAE to Osama but when we have actual documents and proof of 3 al-queda training camps hosted by Saddam and all the evidence of WMDs in Iraq they refuse to follow the trail. Michael Moore’s Iraqi utopia prior to invasion is all the Left will allow themselves to believe in.
Right:
I agree with you in part. The port deal does not seem particularly egregious. The problem is that the entire reason for invading Iraq was that the people there had the same skin color as Usama Bin Laden, in fact Iraq was not even ruled by a fundamentalist government until we got there. The UAE had more connections to the 9/11 hi-jackers than did Iraq. So Bush and co are in a sense reaping what they have sown. Govern by fear and misdirection and you will probably have it used against you at some point.
The latest polls show that about 80% of Americans are against the port deal. The reason that most people fear Arabs is that Bush and Co have been telling people to fear them. Now Bush is trying to say Arabs are OK if they are giving me money. Bush needs to at least stick with one set of lies.
The Port deal doesn’t sell in Peoria – thats the bottom line.
Washington;
Very succinct.
So it’s Bush’s will against the American peoples’.
See…they just failed to ‘sell’ the idea. Either that, or the public’s level of patriotic-driven gullable is in short supply.
Suddenly the rationalizations don’t sound all that rational.
Right, this is a problem of the GOP’s own making. When Congress doesn’t so much as challenge a single aspect of Bush’s national defense policy up until now, it got real easy for him to function with a sense of “Congress is my bitch, and it’ll do whatever I tell it” – – – Hence the threat to veto whatever bill they write up.
And notice it’s not Bill Frist out there shoving that poor choice of political maneuvering back in the President’s face…no, it’s Trent Lott.
This entire thing ran like a corporation, with the White House dictating downwards. If you’re a 2nd term Congressman, you’re to keep your mouth shut and we’ll let you know when we need you for something…
That worked well with Delay at the helm, but now the Heather Wilson’s of the party are actually SPEAKING…in front of CAMERAS…tisk tisk.
Right, race has nothing to do with it. This is about some of these people looking at themselves in the mirror and realizing for the first time in a long while that they have something to say and they’re going to say it! The Senate is still sewn up tight, but the House is a free for all now.
They created the ‘corporate, top-down’ system that they wanted, but the so-called leaders couldn’t help but get themselves indicted, and now the Republicans are actually acting like they have a role to play in all of this.
They suddenly realized that having a king wasn’t such a hot idea after all…
The port deal doesn’t sell in Peoria. It doesn’t sell because it was a bad idea. The timing is atrocious. Any neophyte political adviser would have advisd against it.
The fact is Chris, Bush is successful because the other party is lousy. Can’t find an agenda, can’t find a leader, full of hopeless romantics who believe that what played well in 60 can still play well. The world has changed and the Democrats have become stagnant. They reek.
I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat. I have voted as an independent since 1988 – but this version of the Democratic party is the worst since Carter left Office. It is atrocious.
Attack them for failing. Attack them for allowing all this “wrong” to take place…Where is your rage?
I’m inclined to believe that no matter what Democrats ever do, they’ll always be accused of having no agenda, no ideas, etc.
Truth is, I can’t find a GOP agenda either. That’s politics.
Reality though, the Dems have a number of good leaders in both houses, but unfortunately every one of them in the senate (with a few exceptions – Leahy/Finegold) are running for President, and so…people like Kerry, Clinton and Biden never come out strong on anything, especially Iraq.
Aside from all this though, there are a lot of Iraq veterans running as Democrats, and with the wheels falling off now, I’m hoping a few of them get in and the Dems take back Congress.
The country would be a lot better for it!
Aside from all this though, there are a lot of Iraq veterans running as Democrats, and with the wheels falling off now, I’m hoping a few of them get in and the Dems take back Congress.
Dems taking Congress would be the worst possible scenario. Congress is too imnportant to give control to the liberals, the House of Reps we could live with. Even if a Liberal became president, America wouldn’t be screwed right away.
Everyone needs to remember that the reason we are all in this mess today is because of the failures of Bill Clinton. The only job he got right wa a blow job and that still came back to haunt him. Had Clinton not completely screwed up Somalia then Terrorists wouldn’t think of us as a joke. 9/11 is a direct result of Islam seeing America running away from Somalia.
Quadafi fucked with Reagan once, once, and now he is still, to this day, the peaceful one. Clinton isn’t, in my mind, the worst president of our time only because of his failures in office but also because of the ripple effect of horror his policiies and failures have to this day. We are still suffering because of Clinton.