Bushbots for Dubai

By Nicholas Stix In what may yet prove to be George W. Bush's Waterloo, our fearless leader has succeeded at uniting political enemies from both sides of the aisle in opposition to his plan to let a company owned by the United Arab Emirates take control of America’s largest ports. The UAE, as President Bush has pointed out, is an important ally. On Thursday, he observed sarcastically that he finds it "interesting" that people who had no objection to port security being run by a British firm (as was until now the case), object to an Arab firm. Let me explain it to you, Mr. President: The British are British, and the Arabs are ... ARAB! (Truth be told, I think it is preferable to limit control of American port security to American firms, although I suppose we’ll have to congressionally codify controls by, say, passing a law that American firms may not subcontract port security to foreign firms or foreign subsidiaries, or bring in cheap, foreign H-1B or J-1 or L-1 – or whatever – workers to replace Americans. Don’t you just love those patriotic, American businessmen?) Mr. Bush is trying to race-bait the American people. But there's a little problem with his strategy: Americans who might be intimidated by the same game when it is employed for insignificant maneuvers like hiring incompetent, mendacious blacks as police officers and firemen, won't play it, when it is used on behalf of Arabs who are a threat to our very existence. Recall that two of the 911 terrorists were from the UAE, UAE banks served as conduits to finance the 911 attacks, and the UAE is lousy with bin Laden supporters at the highest reaches of government. Not good. Now, if the American people had, following 911, in a case of contemplation of collective suicide or of Stockholm syndrome said that "Islam is a religion of peace," President Bush might be able to accuse us of hypocrisy. (In which case I’d say, “So sue us.”) But the American people never went along with that nonsense. It was wholly Mr. Bush's idea. Even most people who, like yours truly, supported him for other reasons (because he was our commander-in-chief and we were at war; because we thought, mistakenly, that he supported the U.S. Constitution, etc.), thought his support of Islam was ludicrous, and could only be justified, as I argued at the time, because we needed to avoid a direct confrontation with over one billion Moslems, and needed to get some Moslems to help us beat the other Moslems. But don't try and humiliate the American people into going along with your lunacy, Mr. Bush. Where is that famous "common touch" of yours, when you most need it? But George W. Bush is not utterly alone. He still enjoys the support of the sort of folks whom H.L. Mencken surely was thinking of, when he coined the term "the Stupid Party" to describe the GOP. My inbox has been overflowing the last couple of days with e-mails from a Stupid Party mailing list, whose members are outraged that anyone would criticize the President over the Dubai Deal. The following missive arrived Thursday night. "MSM [mainstream media] and FNC [Fox News Channel] is full of idiots. (Period) "There is NO SALE OF PORTS!!! It's a lease of some shipping terminals and berths. "Over and over the idiots in the media including FNC keep saying 'selling ports'. ????.... "The New Media needs to expose this BS! "Rush has examined and detailed the facts since last Friday, over and over ... "There is NO SALE OF PORTS!!! It's a lease of some shipping terminals and berths. "There is NO SALE OF PORTS!!! It's a lease of some shipping terminals and berths. "There is NO SALE OF PORTS!!! It's a lease of some shipping terminals and berths." At least someone still loves you, Dubya.