I Guess The House Didn't Get The Memo...

[Nbadan]

...that the Dubai Port Deal was 'Republican-approved safe'- after all...


House committee votes to block port deal
Full House to vote next week on issue; Senate also considering measure

MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11730569 /)

House committee votes to block Dubai ports deal -- AP

Market Watch (http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%...)

I can't believe I heard 550 am / Jack Ricardi repeating this GOP talking point.

:rolleyes

[Oh, Gee!!]

I wonder how Henry comes down on the issue

[nkdlunch]

Bush vs. Republicans? :lol

[boutons_]

March 9, 2006

News Analysis

Suddenly, a Rebellion in the G.O.P. on a Signature Issue

By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON, March 8 — After more than five years of allowing President Bush relatively free rein to set their course, Republicans in Congress are suddenly, if selectively, in rebellion, a mutiny all the more surprising since it centers on the party's signature issue of national security.

In a rebuke to the White House, House Republicans are moving aggressively to put the brakes on the takeover by a Dubai company of some port terminal operations in several large American cities, an effort that moved forward on Wednesday with broad bipartisan support.

At the same time, Republicans in the Senate are wrestling with how hard to press the White House for more authority over Mr. Bush's eavesdropping program, seeking a middle ground between Democratic calls for an investigation of the program and White House demands to keep hands off.

( in the meantime, they've castrated FISA by allowing dubya 6 weeks of unwarranted wiretapping. balless fuckers )

In the case of the port deal, the political considerations are clearly paramount for Republicans and are compelling. Public opinion appears to be strongly against allowing an Arab company to manage some port terminals in the United States, Democrats are hammering Republicans on the issue, and the White House has been unable to provide much political cover to its allies on Capitol Hill.

When it comes to the debate over how and whether to allow eavesdropping without warrants on terror suspects, the politics are more muddled. The White House has had considerable success defining that issue on its terms, as antiterrorist surveillance, and there has been no broad public outcry against it. Republicans on Capitol Hill have been left grappling with how to balance their concerns about granting the president wide wartime powers against the perception that they might weaken a program that the administration says protects Americans from attack.

Still, even a limited move to place a check on the eavesdropping program, like the one contained in a deal worked out by the White House with Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, contributes to a sense that Mr. Bush's own party is edging away from him — or, in the case of the port deal, abandoning him and his dismal poll numbers with the greatest possible haste. A perception that conditions in Iraq show little improvement is not helping the relationship.

The president and his Congressional allies have been at cross-purposes before, but it has never reached the level of the port confrontation. The conflict reflects a view held by many Republicans that the White House has asked a lot of them over the years, but has responded with dismissive and occasionally arrogant treatment — a style crystallized in Mr. Bush's quick threat, with little or no consultation, to veto any effort to hold up the port deal legislatively.

Intramural fights in politics often have an element of calculation if not orchestration, and the White House's political shop is no doubt aware that allowing Congressional Republicans to put some distance between themselves and Mr. Bush in an election year could serve the party's long-term interest.

Whether theatrics or something more fundamental, some Republicans say that the port fight and scrutiny of the surveillance program show a new willingness to confront the White House and that it is a fitting moment for Congress to declare its independence.

"If there was ever a good time for Congress to figure out oversight, it would be in the sixth year of a presidency," said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the No. 3 House Republican, well aware that the party in power typically loses seats at the midpoint of a president's second term.

That instinct for political survival is helping to stiffen the Congressional spine. Republicans have held a significant political advantage over Democrats on the issue of national security, offsetting Democratic strength on social policy. Given the uproar at home over the port deal and nervousness about the implications of eavesdropping without warrants, Republicans are worried about losing their edge. Democrats say they should be.

In a memorandum to Senate Democrats that quickly made its way to reporters, a pollster reported Wednesday that the opposition to the port proposal and uncertainty over Iraq have significantly eroded Republican advantages among voters when it comes to security concerns.

"With huge majorities opposing the president's proposal to sell control of U.S. ports to Dubai and the failure of the president's Iraq policy, Republicans' once-yawning advantage on security issues has been largely neutralized," said the pollster, Mark Mellman.

Democrats tried to press their advantage Wednesday in the Senate. Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York surprised Republicans with an amendment to a lobbying bill that would ban any company "wholly owned or controlled by any foreign government that recognized the Taliban" from managing port facilities. The company at issue, DP World of Dubai, fits that description.

Senate Republican leaders, trying to buy the administration some time on the port fight as their counterparts in the House deserted Mr. Bush, blocked a vote. But a showdown appeared inevitable.

"We know what the people of America think," said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. "This is a very bad idea."

There was no hesitation on the part of House Republicans, as the Appropriations Committee voted 62 to 2 to bar DP World from taking over any port operations, adding the ban to a $92 billion spending measure for Iraq and Hurricane Katrina recovery that could reach the floor next week.

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said the House opposition to the deal was less about politics than national security. "We will continue to use our best judgment on how to protect the American people," he told reporters.

While the ruptures over national security have been striking, the administration and Congressional Republicans are likely to be parting ways on other issues waiting in the wings. They include immigration policy, spending cuts, trade and perhaps a stem cell research proposal that many Republicans believe is crucial to winning moderate voters.

The rifts reflect different strains of ideology within the party, many of which have been tamped down until now by Mr. Bush's ability to hold Republicans together, a degree of clout that seems to be ebbing.

Mr. Bush's strength has largely been anchored in his standing on national security. And in elections since the attacks of 2001, that has been good politics as Republicans have claimed the mantle of the party best able to prevent another terror strike.

In the Senate, this week's maneuvering over the surveillance program showed a more cautious approach to confronting the administration. Republicans feared being accused of tampering with an antiterror technique, but some were genuinely troubled by the eavesdropping and refused to reject Democratic calls for an inquiry without taking some action.

The result was a proposal for close oversight by a new subcommittee. But what was most striking was how hard Republicans involved in the negotiations sought to make clear that the agreement was a concession by the White House, not a victory for Mr. Bush.

"They wanted the status quo," said Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

One thing is clear: Republicans on Capitol Hill are no longer entrusting security issues solely to Mr. Bush. They now realize that in some cases, they must protect themselves.

[Spurminator]

This deal is overwhelmingly unpopular nationally. I don't know that Republicans are really making any sort of "rebellion" against Bush. More likely, they're protecting themselves politically because they know Bush will veto the bill anyway.

[greywheel]

President finds a way to save face. Dubai backs out "on their own accord".

CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/09/port.security/index.html)

[boutons_]

I figure the entire episode was Repug-contrived theatre to fake the case that Repug Congress had some spine, or maybe the Arabs-in-ports bullshit was just a smoke screen to push surveillance off the headlines, when in fact the REAL ISSUE was the spine-less Repug Congress gutting FISA laws broken by dubya/dickhead so that dubya now has 6 weeks window of unwarranted surveillance.

These Repugs are dishonest and corrupt to their rotten cores.

[Spurminator]

Yes, this was all a Republican charade to make Republicans look good.

Your theories on motive need some work.

[Nbadan]

Yes, this was all a Republican charade to make Republicans look good.

Your theories on motive need some work.

Not really, because it's these same Senators and House members who will have to be re-elected come November. We've already established that the Bush Administration thinks it has a mandate to do what it wants no matter the situation, even when poll numbers show a over-whelming opposition.

This is the perfect time to draw some distance between you and a lame-duck President.

[Spurminator]

I agree that the opposition is political (see post #5).

My mockery of boutons was over the idea that the entire "Dubai"cle was some kind of Karl Rove plot from the point of purchase.

[Nbadan]

This deal is overwhelmingly unpopular nationally. I don't know that Republicans are really making any sort of "rebellion" against Bush. More likely, they're protecting themselves politically because they know Bush will veto the bill anyway.

Yes, but they say they have the votes to over-ride W's veto threat. The WH is gonna lose this one, they should shift reality to something else people can concentrate on. (by the way, I think the original deflection was to hide a call for an investigation into the Vice president's shooting, common...we all know he was drinking. Who has only '1 beer' at lunch on vacation and then returns for a shot after shooting your friend, and before going to the hospital to check on him?).

[Nbadan]

In fact, were getting word that the Port deal is officially dead...

Breaking: Dubai divests itself of all American interests (ports deal dead)
Posted by librechik
Added to homepage Thu Mar 09th 2006, 02:12 PM ET

AP Photos MDSR101-102
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Dubai-owned company said Thursday that it was prepared to give up its management stake in some U.S. ports, a move made as congressional leaders warned President Bush that both the House and Senate appeared ready to block the takeover.

It was not immediately clear whether the announcement would be enough to cool widespread sentiment in Congress to pass legislation blocking the deal, which has become an election-year nightmare for Republicans.

(no link--hot off news wire)


Politically costly for the WH, but the NeoCons live to fight another day, and Congressional Republicans now get to claim their 'independence' from the WH and appear strong on defense just in time for re-election. Plus, who wants to talk about the Cheney shooting anymore? That's yesterday's news.

:rolleyes

[Spurminator]

Isn't that the same thing already linked a few posts ago?


Plus, who wants to talk about the Cheney shooting anymore?

I'm sure there are plenty of fringe websites who would love to talk about it for the next two years, but the general public would have been bored with it regardless.

[Nbadan]

Isn't that the same thing already linked a few posts ago?

I'm sure there are plenty of fringe websites who would love to talk about it for the next two years, but the general public would have been bored with it regardless.

Oh, I'm sure if this had been Ted Kennedy or John Kerry this had happed too, the corporate media, egged on by the wingnut media - Limballs, Innsanity, would have found time to have a proper 'official' investigation into the shooting instead of taking the word of a proven political partisan who was the supposed 'only eye-witness' but has contradicted herself several times in the press about the shooting.

[Peter]

That's odd, the NYT seemed to be all over the Cheney shooting whatever. Are they "wingnut" or merely "corporate"?

[Nbadan]

That's odd, the NYT seemed to be all over the Cheney shooting whatever. Are they "wingnut" or merely "corporate"?

John Stewart did a great comedic piece on the GOP talking-point - "Nothing more to see here folks! Move along" with FAUX News 'guests" repeating the 'this is a personal matter' and 'this is old news' GOP talking-points, and then showing FAUX spending hours on a story about a brother who shot some people.

:lmao

[Peter]

So the NYT is part of the "wingnut media"?

[Nbadan]

So the NYT is part of the "wingnut media"?

Exactly what article are you talking about? My point is that the media dropped the Cheney story, despite inconsistencies in the 'official story', as soon as the Dubai World Ports situation appeared.

[Peter]

I'm just wondering where The New York Times falls in your categorization of media outlets.

[Nbadan]

I'm just wondering where The New York Times falls in your categorization of media outlets.

The NY Times is alright, but they are not without fault. For instance, they did employ Judith Miller

[boutons_]

In an Election Year, GOP Wary of Following Bush

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 10, 2006; A06

When President Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove mapped out plans for a political comeback in 2006, this was nowhere on the script. Suddenly, the collapse of a port-management deal neither even knew about a month ago has devastated the White House and raised questions about its ability to lead even fellow Republicans.

The bipartisan uprising in Congress in the face of a veto threat represented a singular defeat for Bush, who when it came to national security grew accustomed during his first five years in office to leading as he chose and having loyal lawmakers fall in line. Now, with his poll numbers in a political ditch, the port debacle has contributed to a perception of weakness that has liberated Republicans who once would never have dared cross Bush.

"He has no political capital," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster. "Slowly but surely it's been unraveling. There's been a direct correlation between the trajectory of his approval numbers and the -- I don't want to call it disloyalty -- the independence on the part of the Republicans in Congress."

The port deal has troubled Republicans not just on the substance of the issue but also on the president's handling of it. The White House failed to anticipate the frenzy that would be touched off by the prospect of an Arab company managing U.S. ports, and many Republicans believe that Bush exacerbated the situation with a rash veto threat.

The missteps seem all the more striking for a White House once known for its discipline and political acuity. With Bush's approval rating ranging from 34 percent in a CBS News poll to 41 percent in the latest Washington Post-ABC News survey, some Republican candidates facing the voters in just eight months worry privately that, unlike in 2002 and 2004, he will be more albatross than advantage for GOP candidates in the fall campaign.

White House strategists reject such talk as exaggerated, pointing to other examples of Republican solidarity and predicting that the uproar over the ports will have faded long before anyone enters a voting booth in November. Bush made a point of surrounding himself with congressional Republicans yesterday in the East Room as he signed legislation reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act. Among those on hand was Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), who led the port revolt.

"We are a party that is united and moving forward on a record of accomplishment, a record of results," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. Dismissing questions about Bush's effectiveness, he added: "There's a tendency in this town to try to selectively pick snapshots, when the broader reality is that we have a record of results and that we're getting things done for the American people."

( McClellan is emblematic of the entire Repug reign of lies and incompetence )
And many Republicans are still rallying around the president. After signing the Patriot Act, Bush flew to Atlanta last night to headline the Georgia Republican Party's Presidents' Day dinner. A senior White House official, speaking not for attribution in order to discuss political strategy, expressed relief that on the biggest policy issues -- Iraq above all -- most congressional Republicans still back Bush.

But many Republicans are less willing to give Bush the benefit of the doubt as they once did. That became evident last year on domestic issues, when they abandoned his Social Security plan, criticized his handling of Hurricane Katrina and forced the withdrawal of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Just yesterday, the Senate Budget Committee passed a budget resolution that dropped Bush's proposals for tax relief, Medicare cuts and expanded health savings accounts. A frustrated Bush pushed back earlier in the week, accusing Congress of shortchanging Katrina relief efforts.

Now the estrangement increasingly appears even on national security issues, where Republicans long deferred to the president. Recent rebukes run from the ports deal to a ban on torture to Patriot Act revisions forced on Bush in exchange for congressional approval. Partly in the name of national security, Republican leaders also seem poised to dismiss Bush's proposal for a guest-worker program for illegal immigrants.

"He cannot afford another breach related to national security, I can tell you that," said Patrick Griffin, who was the chief congressional liaison for the Clinton White House. "That would be devastating."

Stanley Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who produced a survey this week suggesting Bush's public standing has been hurt by the port issue, said it may be too late to repair the schism between Bush and congressional Republicans. "I don't know how you put the genie back in the bottle," he said. "After five years of unwavering loyalty to the president, they've demonstrated they'll break with the president to save their own skins."

The port deal has provided ammunition to Democrats who have begun making the case more broadly that Bush is in over his head. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) yesterday called the port situation a "case study in the administration's incompetence," and Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said the administration "was clearly asleep at the switch" and "bungled the oversight of this deal."

But it's not clear whether Democrats will be able to turn that issue to their benefit in the fall. Republicans on Capitol Hill were every bit as vocal as their opponents in standing against the port deal, making it harder to draw a clear distinction come campaign time. By turning against Bush, some GOP strategists believe Republican leaders may have saved themselves a worse fate.

"I never thought we would see a day when anybody would get to the president's right on national security," Fabrizio said. "They may have made chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what. If the Democrats had been able to use this, it would have been horrible, horrible."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[boutons_]

At Conservative Forum on Bush, Everybody's a Critic

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; A02

If the ancient political wisdom is correct that a charge unanswered is a charge agreed to, the Bush White House pleaded guilty yesterday at the Cato Institute to some extraordinary allegations.

"We did ask a few members of the Bush economic team to come," explained David Boaz, the think tank's executive vice president, as he moderated a discussion between two prominent conservatives about President Bush. "We didn't get that."

Now why would the administration pass up such an invitation?

Well, it could have been because of the first speaker, former Reagan aide Bruce Bartlett. Author of the new book "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," Bartlett called the administration "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."

( how dare a Repug utter a discouraging word! Rove will have his balls. )
It might also have had something to do with speaker No. 2, conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan. Author of the forthcoming "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It; How to Get It Back," Sullivan called Bush "reckless" and "a socialist," and accused him of betraying "almost every principle conservatism has ever stood for."

Nor was moderator Boaz a voice of moderation. He blamed Bush for "a 48 percent increase in spending in just six years," a "federalization of public schools" and "the biggest entitlement since LBJ."

True, the small-government libertarians represented by Cato have always been the odd men out of the Bush coalition. But the standing-room-only forum yesterday, where just a single questioner offered even a tepid defense of the president, underscored some deep disillusionment among conservatives over Bush's big-spending answer to Medicare and Hurricane Katrina, his vast claims of executive power, and his handling of postwar Iraq.

Bartlett, who lost his job at the free-market National Center for Policy Analysis because of his book, said that if conservatives were honest, more would join his complaint. "They're reticent to address the issues that I've raised for fear that they might have to agree with them," he told the group. "And a lot of Washington think tanks and groups of that sort, they know that this White House is very vindictive."

Waiting for the talk to start, some in the audience expressed their ambivalence.

"It's gonna hit the lists, I'm sure," said Cato's legal expert, Roger Pilon.

"Typical Bruce," replied John Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy.

Admitted Pilon: "He's got a lot of material to work with."

Bartlett certainly thought so. He began by predicting a big tax increase "to finance the inevitable growth of government that is in the pipeline that President Bush is largely responsible for." He also said [b]many fellow conservatives don't know about the "quite dreadful" traits of the administration, such as the absence of "anybody who does any serious analysis" on policy issues.

Boaz assured the audience that he told the White House that "if there's a rebuttal to what Bruce has said, please come and provide it."

Instead, Sullivan was on hand to second the critique. "This is a big-government agenda," he said. "It is fueled by a new ideology, the ideology of Christian fundamentalism." The bearded pundit offered his own indictment of Bush: "complete contempt" for democratic processes, torture of detainees, ignoring habeas corpus and a "vast expansion of the federal government." The notion, he said, that the "Thatcher-Reagan legacy that many of us grew up to love and support would end this way is an astonishing paradox and a great tragedy."

The question period gave the two a chance to come up with new insults.

"If Bush were running today against Bill Clinton, I'd vote for Clinton," Bartlett served.

"You have to understand the people in this administration have no principles," Sullivan volleyed. "Any principles that get in the way of the electoral map have to be dispensed with."

Boaz renewed his plea. "Any Bush economists hiding in the audience?"

There was, in fact, one Bush Treasury official on the attendance roster, but he did not surface. The only man who came close to defending Bush, environmental conservative Fred Singer, said he was "willing to overlook" the faults because of the president's Supreme Court nominations.

Even Richard Walker, representing the think tank that fired Bartlett, declined to argue. "I agree with most of it," he said later.

Unchallenged, the Bartlett-Sullivan tag team continued. "The entire intellectual game has been given away by the Republican president," said Sullivan. "He's a socialist in so many respects, a Christian socialist."

Bartlett argued that Richard Nixon "is the model for everything Bush is doing."

Sullivan said Karl Rove's political strategy is "pathetic."

Bartlett said that "the administration lies about budget numbers."

"He is not a responsible human being; he is a phenomenally reckless human being," Sullivan proclaimed. "There is a level of recklessness involved that is beyond any ideology."

"Gosh," Boaz interjected. "I wish we had a senior White House aide up here."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[Peter]

The NY Times is alright, but they are not without fault. For instance, they did employ Judith Miller


So what category does the Times fall into: "corporate", "wingnut", or "neocon"?

[Nbadan]

So what category does the Times fall into: "corporate", "wingnut", or "neocon"?

They border on the Corporate. Although for snail news they're alright. I certainly trust them much more than the Washington Times or the NY Post for instance.

[Nbadan]

Listening to Rush spin the Dubai World Ports deal saga today has been enjoyable...

Good Morning America (fucken ABC News! :flipoff) lead with a "sources say" story this morning that W used his worldliness and tough business acumen he earned in the dry-hole digging business in Texas to talk the UAE into dropping their interest in the ports deal. This story that must have been crafted in the middle of the night to show how concerned, involved, and in-touch W is was not reported correctly. GMA apparently made it seem like it was just done to save political face. The implication that is just sitting there right in front of everyone- that W really is connected and concerned with Daddy's friends in the Middle East- was not mentioned by GMA or by Rush.

This was really funny to listen to. The RW spin is spun around on them and they are (Army term) "ATE UP" - they are so worried about screwing up they don't focus on what they are doing and....screw up more.

Rush also offered A (singular) editorial from a San Francisco paper that Dems ...ssshhh...privately admit that they used fear and xenophobia and racism to kill this deal. Remember it wasn't W that killed it it was the Dems, no wait it was the House Republicans, no wait it was the media fanning the flames of hatred....oh yeah that's it the media is blaming the whole thing on W having fanned the flames of hatred and fear since 9/11 and the Dems and the media are working together to use this fear for political gain.

SO sayeth Rush.

[scott]

Bush finally gets on the wrong side of an issue and irrational fear wins.

The Terrorists Have Won?