The End of Bush's Reason To Be

The port scandal should be a tipping point in Bush's credibility, or at least the point where even the afraid-of-their-own-trying-to-be-objective-shadows established media as well as many Bush supporters with a decent amount of intellect can no longer defend Bush's actions.

To sum up, the Bush administration has decided to outsource our port security to Dubai Ports World, a UAE based company. This company would administer port security in major ports up and down the east coast as well as New Orleans. Now I am all for outsourcing, but not when it affects a critical security concern. This is not a racist argument against an Arab country - I do not think any foreign country should be handling our port security. Furthermore, while DP World might be a stand-up, squeaky clean company, the UAE is not its counterpart of a government.

This is a government that formally recognized the Taliban. One of the emirates in the UAE was essentially the center for al-Qaeda's illegal financial dealings, with hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing from the UAE to the 9/11 hijackers. (For a comprehensive list of UAE-9/11 links, click here). On the one hand, Bush never fails to remind us of the 9/11 hijackers, and on the other hand, he wants America to forget that some of those hijackers were UAE nationals. Of course, no one is implicating the government that controls DP World as having been aware or facilitating these connections. The truth is that since 9/11, that government has dramatically clamped down on terrorism and suspicious financial dealings within its borders.

At best we now have a reckless security policy that is taking our safety out of our hands. This move makes no sense and is nothing more than Bush shirking his responsibilty to fund port security with the proper amount of money. It is a bad move by all accounts, and Democrats as well as Republicans have risen to the occasion to slam Bush for it. King George, however, is not amused:

President Bush yesterday strongly defended an Arab company's attempt to take over the operation of seaports in Baltimore and five other cities, threatening a veto if Congress tries to kill a deal his administration has blessed.

As an aside, I think it is pretty funny that the Washington Post decided to use the word "blessed" in that sentence; it certainly describes best how Bush thinks about himself. They could have also said "divinely ruled upon." It also shows how Bush feels about Congress and the Supreme Court - they are to be nothing more than a rubber stamp and a kangaroo court for King George to play with as he pleases. Bush understands neither how this government works nor his own role in it. His deliberate undermining of our system of government should be met with impeachment.

The real point here, however, is that Bush has shown that his own self-proclaimed mission is nothing more than bunk. What happened to protecting the American people? What happened to 9/11? 9/11, bitches!!!!!! Hekebolos at Kos puts it best:

Regardless of whether DPW is a national security threat, the fact that Bush for whatever reason has not taken the same "whatever it takes to defend the American people" approach on this issue that he has taken on Iraq, domestic surveillance, the Patriot Act and torture--that fact paves the way for questioning the motives of the other activities I mentioned--because if Bush really took the "you can never be too careful" approach to everything, why didn't he stop the DPW deal? Bush has reneged the entire premise of his presidency. And it's now time for us to capitalize.

Amen.