The Deal

The Deal

President Bush and the Republican Congress haven't earned and don't deserve our trust.

If approved by all parties, the new deal
would allow Bush to avert a GOP-driven bill to overturn the Dubai deal with
enough votes to override Bush's threat of his first veto. Republican sources
tell TIME that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee proposed the basic
terms of a deal designed to give the White House a graceful way out, while also
allaying the concerns of the many lawmakers in both parties who have said the
deal could be a threat to our security. Under the Frist plan, the deal
could stand a good chance of ultimately going through after the extended review.
Frist aides apparently proposed the terms to representatives of the company
and the White House late Friday. Neither has formally responded but both seemed
interested in the idea, according to a Senate Republican aide. “This
avoids a direct clash,” the aide said. “It solves everyone's problem.
The President doesn't have to cancel the deal or veto anything.”
Frist's
Face-saving Dubai Deal

It's all about President Bush.

This story is no longer about what's good for this country, our
ports, or homeland security, or even how the American people feel about the
Dubai deal. It's all about saving face and offering George W. Bush a way out.

It's not about what's right. It's about what's politically expedient.

It's no longer about country. It's about one man and his political
party.

Pincus
has a story that John Negroponte's Intelligence Community Acquisition Risk Center,
“a new organization,” signed off on the
Dubai deal. One has to wonder if this is another Office of Special Plans
type organization kept out of reach and under wraps, only by Negroponte this
time. But the crux of the okay seems to revolve around a post-9/11 epiphany
that led to a brand new UAE. Everything changed after 9/11, that's the new selling
point. The UAE got with it after Islamic extremists hit the U.S.

Well, excuse me, but our intelligence agencies under Terror Guy
and Deadeye's guiding influence also signed off on the
“slam dunk” Iraq war. So, give me a break and come up with something
else, because I don't trust these guys.

But there's more on the post-9/11 Dubai makeover. The UAE has
been helpful with al Qaeda. They've quit laundering bin Laden money. And even
though Dubai used to launder terrorist money, since 9/11, they've been one
of the best in the world.

Oh, and “once the agency” moved on A.Q. Khan, the UAE
was very helpful. Question is why didn't they inform us about A.Q. Khan
at the start? Or better yet, why was the UAE helping Khan's network run
nukes into dangerous hands in the first place?

General Pace says they're very solid partners and we have a “'superb'
military-to-military relationship.”

Soldiers are never the problem. It's always the boys at the top,
especially the boys who help terrorists launder money and run nukes around the
most dangerous countries in the world.

But according to Bush, we're just supposed to forget
all that and let them into our ports? When pigs fly, pal.

The forgive and forget pre-9/11 mind set of Bush and the flip
flopping, face saving Republicans in Congress boggles the mind, enrages the
soul and sets my patriotic nationalism on stunned.

But four plus years after 9/11, I find it intolerable that we're still listening
to the ridiculous ravings and unadulterated racist challenges from the likes
of Thomas Friedman, who has about as much credibility as Paul Wolfowitz. Can't
somebody get this guy a job at the American Enterprise Institute, stick him meetings
or something, but just find a way to shut him up?

… As a country, we must not go
down this road of global ethnic profiling, looking for Arabs under our beds
the way we once looked for commies. If we do, if America, the world's
beacon of pluralism and tolerance, goes down that road, we will take the rest
of the world with us. We will sow the wind and we will reap the whirlwind.
… … … My point is simple: The world is drifting dangerously toward a widespread
religious and sectarian cleavage — the likes of which we have not seen
for a long, long time. The only country with the power to stem this toxic trend
is America.
Port
controversy could widen racial chasm

The braying baloney from this Bush booster inspires me to want
to invent a brand new game. Pin the tale on Tom. Seriously, “sow the
wind and we will reap the whirlwind”? How long did he have to work
to come up with that trite turn of terrorism jingoism. I could almost see his
self satisfied mug as I finished reading his latest lunacy. We need lectures
from Mr. Friedman like we need another “war on terror” tirade from
Terror Guy.

It's great to hear Dubai has turned over a new flower petal since
9/11, after two of the terrorists help kill 3,000 people and run money through
Dubai. It's great that after our intelligence teams found out about
A.Q. Khan they were then willing to help. That's just swell.

But I happen to be reading a whole lot about Bush's plan forward
in Iraq,
which took me all of 10 seconds because he doesn't have one. His plan for protecting
us via the NSA, which happens to include breaking the law. His plan for protecting
us in the Middle East, with Condi always ending up with her jaw on the ground
every time a new event hits the news cycle. I saw what happened during Katrina.
The Iraqi war intelligence cherry-picking is still fresh with me, coming up every time we get
close to another anniversary of the war kick off, with soldiers faces marching through my brain.

President Bush doesn't know what he's doing and neither do the
Republicans in Congress. They have only one thing on their minds, as always.
Winning the next election. Karl Rove doesn't give too Texas hoots about the
stench and outrage of the Dubai deal. He's thinking only of how to win the next
election over the hill. Frist's flip flop signals he's signed on to help him
do it, hoping to edge out McCain in the Suck up to the Boss Sweepstakes now
being held in the inner cock fight of the Republican Party.

President Bush and the Republicans in Congress are thinking about
only one thing: how to save their own skins and come out without the American
people seeing they actually have no spine at all, just a passion for cash and
making deals and cutting taxes.

The American people have had our hearts ripped open by the thought
of a government-owned company with ties to the events of 9/11 taking over 22
ports.

If President Bush and the flip-flopping Republican Congress don't
understand our feelings, with the likes of Thomas Friedman calling us racists,
well, they don't like Americans very much and don't trust that what we feel
is bone deep, raw and righteous.

But it's not just about President Bush and the Republicans being
out of touch with the majority of America.

We've seen our president in action, over many years, and he's
simply incompetent. The Republican controlled Congress isn't any better, but
they're also corrupt. Now they're both working together to make the Dubai deal
debacle go away, at any cost, while they blithely stiff the American people.

There is absolutely no reason I should trust President Bush or
the Republicans in Congress. I don't think you should either.