Trust us

Here are a couple of excerpts from what Digby has to say about the latest Bush admin scandal:

You Can Never Be Too Careful

He needs to be [able to] secretly spy on American citizens without a warrant and he needs to be able to hold them indefinitely in jail without a trial and he needs to be able to torture innocent people with impunity because we just can't be too careful after 9/11.

But there's no reason to go overboard by saying that we shouldn't outsource our port management to a company owned by a state whose leaders have been known to hang out with bin Laden.

Perhaps the best way to put this is that the administration seems to trust the leaders of the United Arab Emirates more than the US congress or the secret FISA Court.

[...]

Blackmail

Is it any wonder that this whole thing has brought about extreme cognitive dissonance?

It may be that we have gotten ourselves into a terrible position in which we cannot "offend" the UAE by blocking this deal because they may reciprocate by blocking access to their deep water ports. If that's the case, then we are being blackmailed by the UAE for big money and potentially putting our own ports in danger in the process. According to the 9/11 report they have been playing both ends against the middle for years. And we have Yosemite Sam and Quickdraw McGraw in charge of dealing with them. It's not a big surprise that the whole thing is blowing up in their faces.

[...]

Empty Veto

Dan Bartlett is going on and on about the "rigorousness" of the process the administration undertook with this port deal. He keeps saying that they have a lot of experience with this company and that the department of Homeland Security will be in charge of security. Apparently, they have no idea that they have lost the trust of the people on exactly these kinds of things. The rigor of their planning, the "experience" with private companies and the ineptitude of Homeland Security.

They have fear mongered their way to victory for four long years, going on and on about how "the oceans don't protect us" anymore and now they act as if port security is just another contract and claim it's important for "our image" to give security contracts to state owned middle eastern companies with ties to terrorism. Wow.

They are left with nothing but the president's "resolve" to govern. They believe that if he digs in his heels everyone will capitulate out of sheer admiration for his machismo. At 39%, the power of his machismo has shrunk to a fraction of what it once was. He's in very icy water now.