Bush did-not-know strategy on ports puzzles some

[cal04]

Faced with a rebellion in his own Republican party over an Arab company's planned takeover of operations at six U.S. ports, the White House says President George W. Bush was in the dark about it until last week.

While Bush adamantly defended the deal again on Thursday, the I-did-not-know strategy has puzzled some political analysts and communications experts.

"It's a disaster for him, I think," said Michael Hogan, professor of communication, arts and sciences at Pennsylvania State University. "It's never a good thing for a president to say he doesn't know something."

Another analyst thought the strategy was an attempt to shift blame away from Bush. It might also give the president some leeway to compromise, perhaps by accepting a slight delay in the deal while Congress is fully briefed.



http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-02-23T230327Z_01_N2394171_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PORTS-STRATEGY.xml

[bullimiami]

1. a disaster for a president to say I dont know something! how about a

president who never knows anything.

[aden_nak]

2. That's his legal defense.

He's not worried about his poll numbers. He's worried about avoiding prosecution if this whole Great American Scam he's involved with starts coming down all around him. Of course, this is kind of the "Ken Lay" defense. . . and we see how well that's going to work.

[Jane Austin]

4. I dunno. Something is making him look like hell these days.

He's ageing really fast.

[aden_nak]

5. Presidenting is hard work.

[MichiganVote]

3. Mr. Puzzledent?

[sarcasmo]

6. I am really starting to think he doesn't know a lot of things.

Cheney must really run the White House and the boy King is just a figure head. He needed a CD to show him about the Katrina nightmare when watching CNN would have been enough. He obviously wasn't informed enough to know that this Dubai ports thing would blow up in his face. Just two examples of five years of insanity.

[yellowcanine]

7. He was preoccupied with peppergate.

Bush was too busy conferring with KKKarl Rove about what to do with Dick "a beer for lunch" Chaney. Everyone knows that the chimp can only keep one ball in the air at a time.