The Dubai Ports Deal

I don't normally comment too much on current events, especially current political events, but I'll make an exception here.

If you haven't been paying attention, there was a proposal to turn over control of a number of major American shipping ports to a company run by the government of the United Arab Emerites (UAE). This caused concern for a great many people (yours truly included) due to the possibility of a large-scale weapon entering the port in a shipping container. Opposition to this was pretty much bi-partisan, except that the president supported the deal. Now, I thought I had our president pretty-well figured out, whatever else he is or isn't he's tough on terrorism. His support for this deal amazed me, I just couldn't understand it.

I'm not a big fan of conspiracy theories. If your only proof for something is that it might have happened and no one can prove it didn't, well frankly that's just not good enough for me. I also think that GWB, whatever his flaws, has a deep love for America and doesn't want to see it harmed. (If you don't believe this, you may as well click to another site now.) So I'm left with the conclusion that the Dubai deal wasn't a bad thing for the nation, but I just couldn't see how that could be. When I read that President Bush had "bowed to the pressure of Republican lawmakers to call off the deal" it hit me. The answer is politics.

No one in the White House is going any further. President Bush can't run again. VP Cheney will probably retire at the end of his term (if not bef0re). They have nothing to lose by taking an unpopular stance, approval ratings for the President and Vice President are completely meaningless. However, the mid-term elections are coming up, a number of Congressmen and Senators are coming up for re-election. If the President takes an unpopular stand that allows those lawmakers coming up for re-election to take a popular stand, and not long before the 2006 elections. I don't think this deal was ever meant to go thru, but the opposition had to come from people who could benefit from it.

So President Bush takes one for the team, it doesn't do him any harm, and it gives his fellow Republican lawmakers the opportunity to look good, to apparently go against the President, and to come out as being tough on terrorism. Democrats, on the other hand, had to take a calculated stand since this is the same party that opposes racial profiling, and opposition to the ports deal looks an awful lot like racial profiling.

If I'm right about this (and I'll probably never find out for sure) this was a politically brilliant move, let people who have nothing to lose be unpopular, let your own folks take a popular stand, and let the other side have to decide which group of constituents to alienate. Like I said, brilliant.