By Andrew Taylor, AP
It is so frustrating to have to dwell on this non-issue as long as we have. Congress, asleep at the wheel with their cries of foul back when this story broke last fall, now find themselves united with their "enemies" across the aisle, and aiming to ambush the WH with legislation to stop the deal tagged onto other "must pass" bills.
The House tagged their rider onto an emergency spending bill for military and Katrina. The Senate will follow the same tact, but tagging it onto a lobbying reform bill.
"I admire what the House did," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D- Nev., said on the Senate floor. "They said we know the president feels strongly about this. We know he said he's going to veto this. But we're going to do it because we think we have an obligation to our constituents."
As far as I'm concerned, any praise from Harry Reid should be enough to question the sanity of the House decision to stop the sale. But placing this action on the "obligation to our constituents" is about the biggest BS wad tossed by the Congressional elitists I've seen in a long time.
Congress members and their puppet media laid out a 24/7 campaign of misinformation on this deal, founded on xenophobia. All leaped on the opinion bandwagon knowing zip about the maritme world. So any opinions the public has is based on their hysteria at the onset. Trying to reverse that now is nigh on impossible. The public, once they have formed an opinion, are reticent to add re-education to the mix.
And more importantly, Congress and the media have no desires to look like the fools they are by admitting they jumped the gun unncessarily. So they doggedly follow their path of idiocy to save face.
But there are a few sane voices out there...
"This issue should not be tangled up on the debate over whether or not to strengthen our lobbying disclosure laws," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has been a leader on both issues.
Despite the few level heads, it appears Congress is going to ram this thru, regardless of consequences. And those consequences will be interesting to watch unfold as time goes by. It is entirely possible our port security will suffer by mandating companies not as capable of managing this size of port volume. In addition, the Hillary legislation will outlaw other gov't owned or held business partners that have been running some US ports for years in other parts of the country. In one fell swoop, they will potentiall compromise our port security and dismantle long term international business relations.
Good job, you bozos.
And it's also entirely possible that the anti-Arab gov't attitude so blatantly displayed by the elected ones will also hinder our intel efforts in the anti-terrorism world. We have far too few allies that are willing to "sleep with the enemy" and pass on valuable intel garnished. Congress is effectively cutting that lifeline to UAE intel with their actions. I, for one, could not blame the UAE for withdrawing much of their offers of intel aid. Afterall, you have the majority of Congress publicly broadcasting that the UAE "cannot be trusted".
Now there's a display of diplomacy at it's finest.
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