Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Strange Bedfellows

If you are President Bush and former-president Jimmy Carter agrees with you on an issue, it's time to reconsider your position. Carter has been wrong on virtually everything since, well, forever. (The only exception has been his work with Habitat for Humanity. Go pound some nails, Jimmy. PLEASE!) At any rate, Presiden Bush finds himself in this unusual position because of his desire to allow a United Arab Emirates company to have commercial control over six major seaports.

In my opinion, the fact that a couple of the September 11th murderers were from the UAE isn't sufficient to squelch the deal. However, it should cause us to be additionally cautious. A far greater danger is that terrorists will attack one or more of the seaports knowing that the President will be blamed for pushing though this deal. If successful, they will undermine and weaken the President thereby jeopardizing the war effort. The UAE company could be entirely innocent, but that won't matter. The political reality is that this deal will be blamed and the President will be the one left standing when the music stops.

This deal is also bad because it gives Hillary an easy opening to sound stronger on defense than she is. Oops! Too late.