Dubai Retrospective...

Everyone else has commented on Dubai, so a close friend asked me what I thought, now two weeks later...

The 62-2 vote in Congress sums up things well. It was a stupid decision by those involved including Homeland Security that took no notice that, on it's face, contradicted everything the administration has asked us to believe about the threats to our ports - even if it had turned out that there was no real threat from the Dubai company. Incompetence, arrogance, lack of communication, and money issues (similar themes in Iraq, Katrina) were made worse by the fact that no one told the president about the decision until after it was made. How many times do Chertoff and his friends have to screw up royally?

In immediately saying he would veto any action to stop the deal, Mr. Bush made things worse in that he clearly wanted us to believe that he knew about the deal and had good reasons for it - when in fact he admitted a couple of days later that he didn't make the decision but had only just been told about it. Fortunately, Mr. Bush was saved from further embarrassment when the Dubai company 'voluntarily' backed out of the deal.

Like so many other things with this administration, folks, following the money will ultimately help provide more clarity of how everything happened.

What is worse, we still have monumental security issues with our ports that have not been addressed well enough yet, no matter who winds up managing them.