BUSH SUNK IN HARBOR

Well, the Ports Deal appears to be dead, hopefully . . .

Except it wasn't President Bush who admitted his mistake in backing this deal. Instead, as you already know (sorry I didn't post this earlier, by the way), DP World passed an announcement to Sen. John Warner (R-VA), who readit on the Senate Floor.

The announcement stated that DP World would back out of the U.S. ports part of the purchase, saying that they would "Transfer [management] of the ports to a U.S. entity." Transfer? Not buy? U.S. entity? I'd be cautious about those two key words. A transfer incinuates that the company who takes management would have some connection to DP World. The word entity is more interesting, because there is no company in the U.S. that specializes in running ports.

While this is a great thing, I'm more disappointed that it didn't go another way.

The day before the Ports Deal was announced, Congress was ready to take action. That's right, Congress, the one that's controlled by Republicans (and yes, I'd rather have Republicans control Congress than a foreign country run our ports), was about to forcefully halt the Ports Deal.

The House Appropriations Sub-Committee, which I assume is part of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, had voted 62 - 2 to attach a "Kill Deal" amendment to the President's Defense Spending Bill, which provides the billions of dollars to run the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq. The spending bill was slated as a "Must-Pass Emergency Spending Bill", so adding the amendment to kill the Ports Deal was a great idea.

On this one occasion, I'd like to congradulate the House Republicans on doing the right thing. But naturally, I'm a little disappointed. I would have loved to see the President admit defeat, and sign the bill. He's already hovering at about 34%, and I'm positive that would have sent his numbers below 30%.

But nonetheless, I'd rather have National Security than a failing President. I'll still wonder, though, what Bush had to consent to for DP World to pull out, and help him save face? DP World doesn't care about our National Security. They don't care if we get attacked again, like we did on 9/11. They don't care that two of the terrorists were from Dubai. They couldn't care less. That's why we need to protect ourselves, not just save money by exporting our security.

They never have cared, and they never will . . .

-Adam