ANY PORT IN A STORM


The political effects stemming from this disastrous port deal will reach all the way to the November Congressional elections - and maybe even to the 2008 elections, too. Here is how:

1) President Bush, with an all-time new low approval rating today of a staggering 34%, is so weakened that he can no longer control his own Republicans on Capitol Hill. They are in open revolt over this Dubai Ports deal.

2) The Bush White House is reeling from one screw-up to the next. Two weeks ago it was the gross mismanagement of the media operations and dissemination of information in the White House over the Cheney hunting accident; last week came this port problem which is fracturing the GOP - and uniting the Democrats. The level of incompetence is staggering. How could the staff let Bush speak to reporters about the port deal without everything being tied up neat and clean? To have a now-admittedly ignorant–on-the -issue President threaten his own party with a veto is stunning. And it got everyone’s backs up - and has soured things within the GOP in Washington.

3) This 45-day review is a total sham. Already on the very first day we learn that the Coast Guard had doubts about the deal. And then the White House rushes in to discount that. In 45 days nothing politically will have changed: the same 70% of the American people who today do not want Dubai Ports World to manage these 21 terminals are not going to want it then, either. And any Republican member of the House or Senate who flip-flops like the constant flip-flopper Senator Bill Frist (who is not running for re-election this year and has absolutely no prayer for 2008 in the presidential race) is going to get nailed in November. True, only a third of the Senate is up for re-election this year so many senators can reverse field and not have to worry about the wrath of voters this year.

4) If Bush prevails and this deal somehow goes through the GOP will pay a heavy price in November. We will have surrendered our advantage over the weak-kneed Democrats on the subject of “who can defend the nation better.” Can’t you just see the TV commercials showing Bush and the Republicans allowing an Arab Government to control our ports?

Now let’s get to some of the potential 2008 candidates:

• John McCain: he is so desperate to heal up his rift with the Right that he has - once again - made the wrong decision. McCain has sided with Bush on this - and thus put him at odds with 58% of the Republicans and 70% of the American people. He also has shown himself to have bad political instincts. Rather than hoping for a Bush endorsement in 2008 and access to Bush’s fundraising list, McCain should lead the country away from compromising our security by having an Arab Government in any way involved with our domestic ports.

• Hillary: she immediately got to the right of Bush, McCain and the entire GOP on this. It won’t help her much in the long run because the dye is cast for her: all minds have been made up on her for years. Nothing she does can change anyone’s mind.

• Frist: he is a total joke. He is all over the map on everything. He already is backing off on opposing the Port deal. But he will go no where after leaving the Senate.

• George Allen: the sleeper 2008 GOP candidate. But I think he, too, has been too cautious on this port deal. I guess he thinks being quiet and behind the scenes is the way to go right now.

• Rudy Giuliani: he, too, is leaning toward supporting Bush on this deal - at his own political peril. This is his kind of issue and he should have seized it and run with it - thus shoring up his credentials and endearing himself to the Right, which has problems with him on social issues.


Conclusion: This ports deal is dirty business - all done in secret - with untold other revelations sure to come.

The fact that our elected leaders - from the President on down - did not know of this until radio host Mike Savage broadcasts it tells us something profound: there are all these committees and sub-cabinet groups that make so many decisions than none of us ever know about. What other equally horrendous deals have been allowed that we haven’t heard of?

Prediction: this issue further sours the American public on government and politics - and makes 2008 ripe for the taking by a candidate advocating change - not more of the same.

WHITE HOUSE MELT-DOWN


If Vice President Dick Cheney shot himself in the foot last week when he shot poor old Harry Whittington down on the Armstrong Ranch, President Bush is in the process of machine gunning both his legs off over this Dubai Port deal.

What a total disaster this is!

The President - just 4 and one half years after 9/11 - is now defending an Arab government against both political parties and the overwhelming majority of the American people.

This latest incident is further proof that George W. Bush inherited the same political tin ear that his out-of-touch father had.

Neither Bush has a clue what the American people are thinking.

And since the beginning of his last term - won in 2004 only because the Democrats are even more out of touch than the Republicans - G.W. Bush has repeatedly shown that he is missing his audience completely:


• His 6-month campaign last year on Social Security Reform proved to be a total waste of time. The more President Bush campaigned for it - the less support it got. Why? Because it was not the biggest issue to most people.

• Illegal immigration is a huge issue - and Team Bush has screwed it up for 5 years.

• The choice of Harriet Meyers for the Supreme Court was another political screw-up that alienated his own voters and took valuable time and energy away from a positive agenda.

• Hurricane Katrina remains symbolic of the total incompetence of government - from the White House all the way down to the state and local hacks in Lousiana.

• The disastrous Medicare Prescription Drug Program is driving many seniors into mental institutions. It is an example of government screwing up a pretty good situation.

• The Dick Cheney shooting incident just further illustrates W’s inability to take control of an issue and fix it before it overtakes him.

• And, of course, Iraq continually eats away at his presidency. Is there no end to this morass? It is clear that total incompetence and fraud dominates this administration.


Now comes this Dubai Port arrangement. What has happened to Karl Rove’s oft-praised political acumen? Didn’t he see the opposition to this coming? Didn’t he or the President or someone confer with GOP Congressional leaders before this became public?

What a mess they have created for themselves.

You know it’s bad when Jimmy Carter supports you!

Let’s face it: we can’t trust Arab Governments. Period! They play both sides. Sure, they can claim to help us in the War on Terror. But at the same time all these governments finance terrorism if only to pay ‘protection money.’


Prediction: the famous Bush stubborness and arrogance is going to prevent him from deftly dropping this arrangement with Dubai. He is instead going to dig in his heels and try to win over enough public support for this.

And the more he tries, the lower in the polls he will sink.

Just like his Dad, this George Bush is out of touch with the American people - but thinks he is a man of the people.

In truth, he will end up a man of very few people.

THE ANGRY CANDIDATE


All last week the so-called Mainstream Media (MSM) focused on GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman’s Sunday talk show comments that Hillary Clinton is an “angry” woman and Americans don’t elect “angry candidates.”

All true. Hillary is indeed an angry woman. She is your typical liberal: unhappy with everything, sour and generally unpleasant to be around.

But she isn’t the only angry candidate running in 2008.

Indeed, the MSM revealed itself for what it truly is: biased. Because the angriest candidate of them all once again revealed the depths of his bitter, spoiled anger - and got away with it.

John McCain wrote an unbelievably sarcastic, demeaning and hypocritical letter to fellow Senator Barak Obama last week and the letter was reprinted all over the news wires. Excerpts were reprinted in papers and shown on TV.

And yet the MSM refused to go after McCain for this latest - of many - outbursts.

Those of us who know McCain or have dealt with him, know him to be the single worst human being any of us have ever met in the poilitical world - period!

He is nasty. He is rude. He is condescending. He is cruelly sarcastic. He treats people like dirt.

Yet he is capable of showing a nice and charming side to his only real constituency: the Main Stream Media! Yes, these people adore John McCain.

Why?

Maybe because of guilt over their lifetime liberalism and his POW status. Or waybe because McCain trashes conservatism and the GOP - so the MSM doesn’t have to do it.

Whatever the reason, John McCain is the candidate of this mostly left-leaning MSM. And he is leading in the polls for the GOP presidential nomination because of it.

The very last person we should have as our nominee - or as President of the United is John McCain. His temper is out-of-control - and last week’s Obama letter proves it all over again.

McCain - in getting ready for 2008 - has tried to ‘clean up’ his past. So he acknowledges having had temper problems in the past. But he claims that 6 years ago he overcame this problem.

Ha!

Last week’s letter shows that this spoiled brat son and grandson of famous namesake Navy Admirals has always gotten away with his outbursts and mis-behaviors. From his poor record at Annapolis through dumping his first wife for a richer, younger model whose family financed his political career, McCain is a calculating, horrid little man.

But don’t look for the Main Stream Media to expose this side of him.

No, they are a part of the McCain Straight Talk Express - and they intend to ride him all the way to the White House.

Let’s just hope the Republican Party and the Conservative Party wake up long enough to realize that we need a fundamental course correction - and McCain isn’t the one to lead us anywhere.

He is too dangerous, too unstable and too explosive to be anywhere near the Oval Office.

We must do better.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES


Liberals - and Big Government types - believe they can solve virtually any problem through government action. But often these so-called solutions end up making the problem worse - or creating an entirely new problem. Two such instances are slapping us in the face today:

1) Iran’s desire to get nuclear weapons ASAP: this is a direct response to our pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, Iran’s next-door neighbor. With 130,000 US troops on their border and the label as one of the charter members of the “Axis of Evil,” Iran’s leaders have gone even more radical than they’ve been.

The Ayatollahs who run Tehran now support the secularly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of the so-called ‘students’ who held our embassy and hostages back in 1979-1980. His election, too, is undoubtedly part of the ‘radicalization’ of an already radical Iran - due to our 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Prior to that invasion much had been made of the young and moderate class in Iran who wanted to reach out to the West and get re-integrated into the world.

But our pre-emptive invasion of Iraq seems to have snuffed out any ‘moderate’ sentiment anywhere in the Arab or Muslim world. Now the most anti-American radicals rule.

Joining the Nuke Club is the way to go. Those bearded Ayatollahs ain’t dumb. Once you’re in the Club, you’re immune from attack or invasion. Just look at Russia, China, India and Pakistan - and maybe now North Korea, too. Is anyone provoking them?

Our ill-conceived and ill-thought-out - and basically solo - invasion of Iraq has transformed the region into a virulently anti-American zone. Half of the Iraqis who we ‘liberated’ say it is now OK to attack Americans!

Iran, scared that the neo-cons want to force an invasion of Iran, have taken their own pre-emptive actions:

1) Infiltrated the new Iraqi bureaucracy with Iranian agents who already control the Iraqi security services and intelligence apparatus;

2) Secretly control many of the Shi’a politicians in the south of Iraq who have won the recent elections. Iran has effectively co-opted this new government - even before it is formed.

3) Re-started their long-nascent nuclear program - even defying the world. How can they do this? Simple. By playing the oil card. They can, by their own machinations, drive up the price of oil and disrupt the western economy. And if, in retaliation, we were to embargo their oil (which we won’t), they have a simple alternative: sell to oil-thirsty China.


Iran has always been much more of a threatening enemy than Iraq ever was.

We have been at war with them since November 4, 1979 - the day they attacked our embassy in Tehran.

We should have kept our powder dry instead of shooting our wad on Iraq.

Team Bush didn’t think this thing through properly. And now we are in trouble.



2) The ongoing Medicare Prescription Drug Program is an unmitigated disaster.

Seniors are not getting the drugs they need; pharmacies aren’t getting paid - and some seniors have had to be hospitalized for mental conditions after their mood-regulating drugs were suddenly denied to them.

All of this comes from the 2000 campaign and the ‘pledge’ to do something about prescription drug costs.

So what did the GOP-controlled Congress and the Bush Administration do?

Betraying their conservatism, they installed yet another ‘entitlement’ program. And this one has clearly made the situation worse.

Before they did it they ignored surveys of seniors in which a huge majority said they were very happy with their present plan. Instead, to satisfy a minority of seniors, the GOP has screwed up all seniors.

Furthermore, the Bush Administration lied to Congress about the cost of this program, knowingly under-reporting the true cost of this program by $400 billion!

The GOP has disgraced itself in this matter. They have foresaken a key tenet of Reaganism: government doesn’t solve problems - it causes them.