Port Whine

What if…….

Bush had said "No friggin way are any rug-heads going to run any of our ports!"
The opposition and extremists on the right and the left would have all cried:

"Racism"
"Fear-mongering"
"Other foreign countries already have control of many ports and air cargo operations within the US"
"DPW has a blemish-free record of controlling the contents of cargo"
"Terrorists routed monies through Britain, too"
"Maybe DPW can help to control our borders, too"
"Bush just wants Cheney’s Halliburton to have the contract instead of DPW"
"Let’s push the deal through the legislature and dare Bush to veto it"
"He just thinks he’s the King and can stop them from buying a British company’s contract"
"UAE is our strongest ally in the Middle East"

Now that DPW/UAE has stated they’ll divest themselves from the US portion of the deal, we’ll be hearing:

"The Republican leadership stopped this terrible deal and saved the country"
"No you didn’t, either! We, the Democrats, put a stop to this Bush bungle. We did, not yous guys! Take it back!"
"Security and foreign company operational control at other ports is not the important issue of the day. It’s ________ (fill in the blank). Healthcare, deficit, elections, welfare, education, budget cuts, border control, illegal immigrants, Iraq, Osama, disenfranchised voters, free meals from lobbyists.
"We can make some political hay with having stopped this deal"
"My husband might have been for it, but I was against it, even before I understood anything about it"
"The French are still importing port wine into the US, even though we can grow our own grapes"
"The Muslims have a right to hate us now that we’ve discriminated against them"

What SHOULD happen now:
Kick out any other foreign company currently in control of any of our ports and air cargo operations.

UPDATE
And isn't this just perfect?
Just exactly the WRONG message to send the Muslim World.
"A house divided can not stand for long" -- Abe Lincoln

Arab ally senses Bush no longer has control in Washington

By Edward Alden and Holly Yeager in Washington
Published: March 9 2006 22:00 Last updated: March 9 2006 22:00

More than four years after the September 11 attacks, it brought together a toxic combination of anxieties over America’s place in the world. Traditional protectionists, worried by foreign acquisitions of US assets and the outsourcing of jobs to distant and little-understood countries, lined up alongside security hawks who warned that even a close Arab ally such as the UAE was vulnerable to terrorist infiltration.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/aaf675ba-afb6-11da-b417-0000779e2340.html