How a Business Deal Became a Big Liability for Republicans in Congress

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Representative Peter T. King of New York was in a room packed with reporters last week, complaining that the White House had jeopardized national security by contracting with an Arab-owned company to manage terminals in six American ports, when he felt his cellphone vibrate. It was Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the speaker
of the House. Mr. King, like Mr. Hastert a Republican, finished talking and hurriedly returned the call, expecting the speaker, who has never broken with President Bush on a major issue, to chastise him. "And before I said anything," Mr. King recalled, "he said, 'You don't have to tell me what a bad deal it is: you and I are on the same page.' "
(snip)
That moment, on Tuesday in New York, was a critical tipping point in the political furor engulfing Mr. Bush over the deal by Dubai Ports World, a company run by the government of the United Arab Emirates, to manage American ports including some in New York and New Jersey. Though the tensions were somewhat defused Sunday when the company agreed to a 45-day national security review, the problem continues to exact a steep political price from Mr. Bush, exposing divisions between the White House and Congressional Republicans in a critical election year and further weakening a president already reeling from a series of setbacks, from Hurricane Katrina to the war in Iraq.
"We've defended them on wiretaps, we've defended them on Iraq, we've defended them on so many things he's tried to accomplish, that to be left out here supporting this thing in a vacuum is kind of offensive," Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida, said Sunday in an interview after the company's agreement to the review was announced. He added, "If it's just about saving face and letting us humor ourselves, we won't be satisfied."

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People were crazy about this," said the conservative talk show host Michael Savage, who railed against the Dubai contract on his radio program, broadcast on 370 stations with an estimated 8 million to 10 million listeners. "Even the Bush supporters went nuts." The uprising is, in one sense, a clash over economics and national security that played on Americans' fears of another terrorist attack. Many shared the sentiments of Cira Alvarez, a 74-year-old Republican in Miami, who said of Mr. Bush, "I have supported him just about everywhere else, but this is just horrible."


(snip)
By midweek, Mr. Foley said, his phones were ringing off the hook with constituent complaints. And he was not the only one. Mr. Hastert, who represents a rural district in Illinois, was flooded with calls as well. On Capitol Hill, Mr. Schumer was continuing to hammer away, and had drawn support from an unlikely ally, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma.
a lot more
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/27/politics/27politics.html

[Guckert]

1. Bush and his team of Fear mongers spend 24/7 since 9/11 scaring

the american people with the constant preaching of fear. Watch out for Arabs on planes they could bring the plane down, watch out for arabs congregating they could be planning, watch out for arabs near your schools they may be after your kids, watch out for arabs meeting around mosques they cold be planning the next 9/11. and then they are shocked at the reaction of the american people that have been told endlessly how dangerous and evil arabs are.
These people make me sick.

[dflprincess]

2. While I agree that the fear mongering in 99% of the outcry over this

I think a small part of it was the shock that any foreign outfit is running U.S. ports. Everyone has heard about jobs being sent overseas, but I think the fact that our own ports aren't run by U.S. companies may have been just too much for some people to take - regardless of whose running them.

Again, just so I don't get flamed, the fact that it is the UAE that's involved with this deal is, by far, the main cause of the outcry. I doubt the media would even have reported this if it were a German or Canadian firm (even if said firm was owned by the German or Canadian governments) taking over.