Thursday, February 23, 2006

Rove Steps In To US Ports Issue - (because he got caught with his pants down and his preznit is in doo doo)



From Liberal Catnip Karl Rove has stepped into the Dubai Ports deal in the US and it appears now that Dubai Ports World will delay the completion of the deal to take over 6 terminal operations in the United States.

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," Rove said, adding that regulatory rules abroad could also add a few days to a final sign off on the transaction.


There is no word as to the state of the deal with respect to Vancouver's Centennial Terminal since the Conservative government only comes out on cloudy days in an effort to avoid seeing their shadows.

If David Emerson would quit wallowing in self-pity and get on with his job, we might have more information on this. You draw the pay; you do the job, Emerson. Or is this someone else's responsibility?

Check out Liberal Catnip for the whole story.

UPDATE: OK, here's what I see out of this. The guy who REALLY runs the Oval Office has hit the deck running. Rover got caught napping on this one. This was supposed to be a nothing event and just slide on by. Then the press got into it and Congress went nuts. It would have been an easy spin job if it had just been the Democrats making all the noise, but even the Republicans are barking and baring their teeth. (You might say this was Rove engineered if it wasn't for the fact that there is a bi-partisan block working in the same direction and Rove would always view that as a disaster.)

What must be terrifying Rover is that Dubya has been fending off bi-partisan attacks on his own... without the spin machine spun up.

There is another aspect to this. I suspect that more than one of the Republican Senate/House critters knows full well that there is less to this than they are willing to admit, but more than one of them have a solid axe to grind with Rove.

Rove, if you recall, was behaving like a thug with a large group of Senate and House Republicans over their lack of support for Bush's illegal domestic spying operation and was threatening to have them blacklisted. Maybe it's just me, but this looks like payback and a way to stick it to Rove. Certainly, he'll have a tough time spinning this now, especially since the likes of Michelle Malkin, O'Reilly and all the other rabid dogs who usually support Bush are demanding he put a stop to the deal and explain how it got as far as it did. And now Rove has to, (ahem), provide them a level of comfort over the deal. If I was one of the senators previously threatened by Rove, I would think I have a little political capital on this one.

Or, maybe I'm wrong.

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