For a minute there I thought President Bush was in terminal freefall over the Dubai/port deal. But, he pulled the ripcord and checked his fall by admitting he didn’t have a clue about the deal until it was a done deal.
What? He didn’t have a clue? I sometimes wondered if he was missing a few connect-the-dots..
.. no I won’t go there.
I’ll just say, this kind of thing could be expected from a delegator. If you push enough stuff off your desk you are bound to be cut out of the loop sooner or later. Maybe.
On the other hand, President Bush has built up a solid reputation for keeping the lid on things around the White House, running a tight ship and all that. So how could he not have known about a deal with a built in Achilles heel? (Apparently) The folks he delegated this responsibility to did not think to tell him about the Dubai deal before it was already approved. Was this an attempt to keep the information hushed?
What is there about this deal that makes it so important that Bush threatens his first veto ever? The investors? The prestige? The desire to make amends? He hasn’t vetoed one thing in five years. Now, all of a sudden, he will veto any bill that threatens to even stall the Dubai port operations purchase.
From a report in the Washington Post I see that the firm, Dubai Ports World, has offered a short delay which will give the administration time to, as Karl Rove told Fox News guy Tony Snow, "There's no requirement that it close, you know, immediately after that. But our interest is in making certain the members of Congress have full information about it, and that, we're convinced, will give them a level of comfort with this."
But, another report tells me certain members of Congress are not comfortable enough to go along with the sale. Martha Angle, reporting for CQ lists 4 Democrats and 4 Republicans who are promising a bill that would require a 45 day investigation and give Congress 30 days to disapprove the sale after they get a full report.
