Pundits Part Company With Bush on Dubai Deal

[PhilipShore]

New York Sun
Pundits Part Company With Bush on Dubai Deal
National
March 3, 2006

http://www.nysun.com/article/28519

As President Bush stands firmly behind approving the proposed takeover of American port operations by a Dubai-owned firm, many conservative commentators who have been among his staunchest supporters have parted company with the president and joined calls to scuttle the acquisition.

The editor of the American Conservative magazine, Scott McConnell, said that Mr. Bush is seeing a significant erosion of support from quarters that were usually friendly. "There's a kind of red state, populist, don't-tread-on-me kind of conservative that Bush has always been able to rely on in his foreign policy. I think the White House is losing that," he said in an interview. "These folks are no globalists and they're not enthusiastic about free trade and are more skeptical about immigration."

"Kill the deal, Mr. President," a former education secretary under President Reagan, William Bennett, wrote this week on the National Review Web site. The key question, he argued, is not whether the United Arab Emirates has helped fight terrorism, but whether the country was doing anything to advance the goals of democracy that Mr. Bush has talked so much about.

"To defend this deal is to defend a $7 billion arrangement with a country that has never had a democratic party in its entire existence," Mr. Bennett observed in an essay co-authored by a conservative colleague, Seth Leibsohn. They scoffed at Mr. Bush's suggestion that prejudice was the only reason to be more suspicious about a firm that hails from Dubai, DP World, than the British company currently running the American ports.

[truthisfreedom]

1. and when bush is forced to "about-face" on this deal, he'll look like he's

wearing diapers. he's been backing away from controversial issues for months... rove is obviously a basket-case at this point.

i think Fitzgerald broke rove's brain.

[Skittles]

6. hey, did the deal go through or not?

I heard the transaction would take place Thursday, regardless of the 45-day review

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. Hmm, the right wingers are starting to do to * what they did to Clinton

First time since the 2000 coup. I hope this means the blinders are coming off.

(OnEdit Note the word "starting" - in no way am I saying it's the same thing, because clearly it hasn't come that far... yet)

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[rodeodance]

3. umm.. convervative commentators are against the deal--maybe this

will be another "Harriet Myers" moment?

[underpants]

4. Go out on Main Street and wave the flag all you want-your a** is for sale

Has it sunk it yet you knuckledraggin deuchewhistles?

[Skittles]

5. in other words, bush finally got around to f***ing them

they were just fine with bush f****ing everyone else.