Dubai

Listened to Negroponte say that the risk to the US was "low," as regards the Dubai government owned firm that is to take over the 6 major and 18 minor ports in the US. This does not make me feel any better about the whole situation.

The Administration claims that it's all just fine, and of course it is, their buddies, the royal family of Dubai, and they themselves, will make a lot of money on this deal.

It is interesting that Bush was ready to veto anything that would mess the deal up. His first veto in five years. And after the fact it was discovered that he had only in the past few days heard of the deal. In fact, no one in his Administration knew anything about it until just a couple of days before it hit the wires. So why would he be so set to veto anything that would scuttle the contract?

Could it have anything to do with oil and money? Well, let's see here. The royal family of Dubai protected Bin Laden from getting whacked by the US. The royals were involved in a hunting trip with him and of course you can't go around whacking Royalty. They were involved in moving money for Bin Laden post 9/11. And hasn't Mr. Bush made a rather large issue of all things 9/11? Hmmm!! And, of course there is the little matter of shipping nuclear equipment to North Korea. But, hey, says Bushco, their really good hearted types, so we should do the deal. Even if there was no real investigation into the matter and it was done at a pretty low level.

Personally, I'd love to see Congress buck up and make him veto the whole thing. Really light up his bigtime 34% Approval rating.