I first heard this story related on Fox News Sunday, Feruary, 19, 2006 edition. That makes 18-19 days of intense public debate on this issue, since that first reports. The public political debate here on Free Republic has been very spirited. Sadly, many FReepers who supported the DPW/UAE deal have continually engaged in sophistry, obfuscation and questioning peoples motivation. OTOH. Instead of sticking to the issues, many people on both sides have reverted to ad hominem attacks. All this has happened over the last three weeks or so. One thing I've not seen, is panic on the part of GOP Congress members. Some people have become hysterical over this issue. But I see no panic.
There was significant movement toward the president's position by congresscritters after the first wave of "oh my Gods". Then came the poll numbers, buffeted by the consistently false MSM mantra "Arabs buying our ports".
Congresscritters saw the poll numbers and quickly scurried back to the "safe" position. Boehner was on Tony Snow. And frankly admitted it was political hide saving. It's a bogus issue.
If they want to make a law that says no foreign leasing or management of terminals in US ports, then fine. But singling out the UAE, our staunchest Arab ally, when China and the Saudis and numerous others manage terminals is plain ignorance.
DPW runs terminals in for major ports in China. Do you think that the Chinese are not interested in the security of their ports?
the white house refuses to offer the congressional republicans a political off ramp here - they want them to commit political suicide in the face of the polls on this issue. and I am not talking about the generic polls, I am just talking about the polls amongst republican voters.
its amazing to me that the white house would find this one issue, to take a firm stand on, and be so politically tone deaf on it.
and you can see the white house strategy here - they don't want to use the 45 days period to find a compromise here, they just want to hand wave, break the arms of the leadership to push this through procedurally, and run out the clock.
LOL!! Even Juan Williams smells Republican panic.
The House Republicans have managed to shoot themselves in BOTH feet.
I've seen none of this. In fact, I have to say that the arguements made by the anti-deal faction have been riddled with distortions, misstatements of fact, outright lies, and blatant race-baiting.
The most disheartening thing to see from my perspective is the ease with which a couple of discredited nitwits from the Dimbulb party were able to stampede the entire congress including most of the Republican Party.