Say Anything Blog

This knee-jerk reaction isn’t going to help anybody.

That may be, but it wont hurt anyone either.  Haliburton is going to end up running things (from the sounds of things), which may have been the plan all along. 

Right, Dustin.  Bush and Republicans all engaged in a super-secret plot to pretend to give Dubai Ports World the contract, get Americans all pissed off at them...all so Halliburton could get this contract.

Good work.  You’ve solved it. 

That may be, but it wont hurt anyone either.

Except our realations with our staunches ally in the region from whence all global Islamic terrorism springs. 

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

I have no idea if Free is onto anything but he seems to be hinting at something I have maintained since Ronald Reagna…

RR and GWB are masters of the Rope-a-Dope.  

Let them (the Left, the Media, whomever) think you are coo-coo and "allow" them to smash your first choice to bits and then offer up a "better" choice, one that you wantd in the first place but might/might not have gotten off the ground.

It also works to your favor to let tehm think you are a litle "slow", they tend to pay less attention to you between rounds…

Just my opinion.  Time will tell.

Except our realations with our staunches ally in the region from whence all global Islamic terrorism springs.

Which were at zero to begin with.

Let them (the Left, the Media, whomever) think you are coo-coo and "allow" them to smash your first choice to bits and then offer up a "better" choice, one that you wantd in the first place but might/might not have gotten off the ground.

It worked with Harriett Miers didnt it?   

Which were at zero to begin with.

Uh...no they weren’t.

I have no idea if Free is onto anything

I think Free is engaging in unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.  This move makes no sense for Republicans.  Plus, let’s not forget that the White House didn’t have control over this deal.  Dubai Ports World bought out a British-owned company.  I doubt very much that the Bush administration convinced DPW to buy out P&O all so that Halliburton could end up getting the contract for these ports. 

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Plus, let’s not forget that the White House didn’t have control over this deal.

Or did they?  Lets get Fox Mulder on the case. 

See?  Its like I said.  Conspiracy theory crap.  X-Files stuff.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

See?  Its like I said.  Conspiracy theory crap.  X-Files stuff.

Evolution is just a Theory and its taught as if its a fact.  Your so closed minded Rob. 

The "theory" of evolution is based on years of detailed research.  The fairy tale you proposed above is nothing more than baseless conjecture.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

The "theory" of evolution is based on years of detailed research.  The fairy tale you proposed above is nothing more than baseless conjecture.

Obviously, the Republicans are more interested in saving their political behinds than they are in the security of this country.

The will of the people is not always rational.   The main debate when ths country founders write the constitution is how to distill people passion through republican mechanism, but sometime this mechanism fail (politician pandering to popular uproar in an election year for example.)   The President will have no choice but to take this hit at every step of the process.    What can the President do to provent this deal?

1. Inform P&O that they can not except Dubai bid for the company? Pay P&O shares hold the difference between the acceptable bid and Dubai winning bid?  Image the row when that get out.

2. Told the Dubai to not place a bid and keep it quiet.  Do the US really want to pay Dubai the potential profit from the business transaction?  The end result is having the P&O fall to a Chinese company (which is also government control.)

3.  Told the Interagency that "no" is the only exceptible outcome of the approval process.   I think there will be legal and long lasting international business relationship problem if this occur.   The only way out of this deal is if the Interagency find reasons to reject to deal on ground of national securities which is not the case, the committee approved it animously. 

 So where do the president goes from here?

THe president will take it like a man.  He will veto an extralegal action of congress to kill the deal.  Congress will override the President veto, but I don’t see this ending there.  This take over will be in the court system for years.

A couple of question that need to be answer.  Can congress enact a law penalizing on party in a business deal after the fact even if that party apply by all the law then in effect and meet the approve of committee set up by that same congress?   

I think everyone needs to remember that they allow our naval vessels to dock in their ports, our ARMED naval vessels. That could change real quick.

I’ve added a link to my The Stupid Party Returns post.

The only hope the GOP has for retaining a majority this fall is for enough voters to realize the choice is between "dumb" and "dumber" and stick with "dumb."

On the ports deal itself, I haven’t given up hope that it can be modified in such a way to make it acceptable, possibly by using an American subsidiary of DPW.  That’s gotten some press recently but no one seems to remember that Dafydd ab Hugh was the first one to make the suggestion in "print." Last I knew Dafydd was predicting W will veto the emergency appropriations bill if the ports rider stays attached to it. I hope he does.

At the risk of being accused of thinking it’s still 35 years ago like the dhimmicrats, I want to refer some people to my Of Arabs, Ports, and Kit Carson Scouts post, where I wrote:

"… As I’ve noted before—most recently here—there’s a full blown shooting war with Iran in our foreseeable future. We need the UAE on our side, and I can’t think of any good reason we shouldn’t keep them there.

I’m going to date myself to try to put some perspective on things. A lot of people my age remember the term "Kit Carson Scout." (If your memory needs some refreshing click here.) Kit Carsons were former enemies and trusting them didn’t come naturally, but we needed their help so we did anyway, or at least pretended to. As a REMF I didn’t deal personally with Kit Carsons, but I was never quite sure there were any Vietnamese I really wanted to turn my back on. Today, trusting Arabs and Muslims doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us either, but we have a situation on our hands that I believe demands that we trust some of them, or at least pretend to, because we need them in our fight against others that we know we can’t trust. ..."

Still not knowing if Free, or now Bill Faith, have anything, but I submit to Robs good point (about GVB, et al not likely to have convinced DPW to buy-out so American-firm can be inserted) and subsititute Bill’s possibility.

Is GWB, et al supporting the deal for the continued port accesss for a (time-to-be-determined) War/Battle/Conflict in Iran?  Sounds as plausible as the next speculation…

I have decided to come up with my own conspiracy theory.  This was all engineered by Karl Rove to give the Congressional Republicans the chance to flex their national security muscles an start to shore up their support for the fall elections.

Hey, it makes as much sense as any other conspiracy theory.