Confession: I totally missed the Dubai port takeover scandal that has apparently been a huge deal for the last few days. I still haven’t figured out how (it’s all over everywhere), so let’s just blame quantum mechanics.
(The story in brief, for those who have an equally feeble grasp of contemporary news: Dubai Ports World a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates – yes, that United Arab Emirates – has recently bid successful to operate ports in New York, New Jersey, Miami, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New Orleans. Bush adamantly defends this choice over the objections of just about everybody).
I learned of this story this morning when I read from several news sources that a war is brewing between Bush and Congress. When even Bill Frist calls the president out on his shit, it speaks to a pretty nasty storm rising. Dare I hope that we are at the beginning of the end of the imperial presidency?
My own take on the situation is entirely unoriginal: it’s self-evidently insane to leave the eastern seaboard in the hands of a Taliban/Al Qaeda-friendly government, and if the White House has evidence to the contrary, they’d damn well better share it with the Senate.
UPDATE: A lot of chatter on the left blogs about whether this is basically a racist controversy or not. And having read a bit more on the subject I’m not so concerned as I was (UAE is one of the most progressive of all Middle Eastern countries, it would seem). But the fact remains that our eastern ports are to be operated by a government (NOT a private, foreign-owned company) that has had ties to people who want very much to blow up Westerners. So my point remains as it was: if there’s no compelling reason to think this is entirely safe, we can do better. By having our own damn government operate the ports, for example.