The GOP-friendly politics of ports.
Buck Betard has a point. There are a lot of political upsides in the UAE port-facility-takeover controversy for the GOP. An emailer to The Corner yesterday spelled out some of the reasons:
Maybe it's just me (and apparently it is), but I think this port thing is a BIG win for W, both on substance and one atmospherics.
First, nobody is going to believe Bush would risk the safety of the country. He absolutely holds the high ground on that issue.
Second, I think that most people, after the initial shock, quickly realize that the actions of a few crazys do not indict a whole country. If they did, may we'd deserve to be blown up for the degrading trash that out "media" spews out onto the world. Really, all Bush has to say is "racial profiling". Liberals can't argue for that, and conservatives don't open that debate.
...I agree that this deal is payback from Bush, probably for help given in the terror war. But even if he fails to make this stick, I think he'll get credit from the UAE, and he'll look principled while the congresscritters look panicked.
I assume that liberals (including me) who initially thought Bush had screwed up wildly by pushing this corrupt-looking deal mainly dispute the premise that "nobody is going to believe Bush would risk the safety of the country". Certainly the era of Bushie infallibility on the subject of terrawah is over. But sadly, the emailer may be mostly correct, at least given that the options for trust are the White House on one side and a pack of flailing, grandstanding, emasculated congresspeople on the other. But even if Bush's popular credibility on national security is pretty much shot, three complicating factors may still make this controversy a net gain for the GOP.
First, as Buck points out, it gives House and Senate Republicans the opportunity to distance themselves from an not-terribly-popular (particularly on the related issue of immigration) White House as midterm season approaches. Midterms are about turning out the base, not about wooing the vast middle swathe of voters who don't much care whether the UAE runs a port facility somewhere and who might find nativist opposition to the idea slightly unseemly. (In supporting Bush on the matter, John McCain is speaking to this part of the electorate, his 2008 lodestar.) The activist Republican base is far more likely to donate and turn out in 2006 for the party that prevents Elitist Washington from turning US ports over to the Arab Menace than for the party that is unflinchingly loyal to its fallible (particularly on immigration) commander in chief.
Second, if the GOP nativists benefit in the short run, Bush, representing the institution of the Republican Executive, benefits in the long run (i.e. the three-year-run)from his role as defender of the meritocracy of the market. Bush gets to play the neoliberal grownup, putting policy above politics, and picks up much-needed CW points. The Washington Post editors agree with him. The L.A. Times editors agree with him. Only the NYT editors, who joined the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill awhile ago have joined with rightwing base-stroking publications like the New York Post in dissent.
Third, the whole affair was from the start bound to tie liberals up in logical knots and provoke lots and lots of internal disagreement and self-questioning. (My opposition hinging on the distinction between state-owned and private-sector corporations, whether the former should be judged by their owners' performance as a government or on their narrow corporate performance, and whether most people understand that the blurring of the state and the corporation is a major part of multinational commerce under "free trade" is a case in point.) On one hand, we dispute the secrecy and heavy-handedness of the sale, Bush's continued contempt for Congress, and the White House's slavish devotion to the tenants of insiderish corporate free trade in general and Sheikh-dominated Big Oil in particular. On the other, we liberals want to steer clear of anything that sounds even vaguely like the arguemnts eminating from faux-populist wingnuts like Michelle Malkin against capitulation to the Great Arab Menace. As we agonize over the correct middle ground to take, rightwingers swoop in to self-righteously accuse liberals of hypocracy. It's like the Iraq War debate writ on a small scale. Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling.
Maybe it's just me (and apparently it is), but I think this port thing is a BIG win for W, both on substance and one atmospherics.
First, nobody is going to believe Bush would risk the safety of the country. He absolutely holds the high ground on that issue.
Second, I think that most people, after the initial shock, quickly realize that the actions of a few crazys do not indict a whole country. If they did, may we'd deserve to be blown up for the degrading trash that out "media" spews out onto the world. Really, all Bush has to say is "racial profiling". Liberals can't argue for that, and conservatives don't open that debate.
...I agree that this deal is payback from Bush, probably for help given in the terror war. But even if he fails to make this stick, I think he'll get credit from the UAE, and he'll look principled while the congresscritters look panicked.
I assume that liberals (including me) who initially thought Bush had screwed up wildly by pushing this corrupt-looking deal mainly dispute the premise that "nobody is going to believe Bush would risk the safety of the country". Certainly the era of Bushie infallibility on the subject of terrawah is over. But sadly, the emailer may be mostly correct, at least given that the options for trust are the White House on one side and a pack of flailing, grandstanding, emasculated congresspeople on the other. But even if Bush's popular credibility on national security is pretty much shot, three complicating factors may still make this controversy a net gain for the GOP.
First, as Buck points out, it gives House and Senate Republicans the opportunity to distance themselves from an not-terribly-popular (particularly on the related issue of immigration) White House as midterm season approaches. Midterms are about turning out the base, not about wooing the vast middle swathe of voters who don't much care whether the UAE runs a port facility somewhere and who might find nativist opposition to the idea slightly unseemly. (In supporting Bush on the matter, John McCain is speaking to this part of the electorate, his 2008 lodestar.) The activist Republican base is far more likely to donate and turn out in 2006 for the party that prevents Elitist Washington from turning US ports over to the Arab Menace than for the party that is unflinchingly loyal to its fallible (particularly on immigration) commander in chief.
Second, if the GOP nativists benefit in the short run, Bush, representing the institution of the Republican Executive, benefits in the long run (i.e. the three-year-run)from his role as defender of the meritocracy of the market. Bush gets to play the neoliberal grownup, putting policy above politics, and picks up much-needed CW points. The Washington Post editors agree with him. The L.A. Times editors agree with him. Only the NYT editors, who joined the Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill awhile ago have joined with rightwing base-stroking publications like the New York Post in dissent.
Third, the whole affair was from the start bound to tie liberals up in logical knots and provoke lots and lots of internal disagreement and self-questioning. (My opposition hinging on the distinction between state-owned and private-sector corporations, whether the former should be judged by their owners' performance as a government or on their narrow corporate performance, and whether most people understand that the blurring of the state and the corporation is a major part of multinational commerce under "free trade" is a case in point.) On one hand, we dispute the secrecy and heavy-handedness of the sale, Bush's continued contempt for Congress, and the White House's slavish devotion to the tenants of insiderish corporate free trade in general and Sheikh-dominated Big Oil in particular. On the other, we liberals want to steer clear of anything that sounds even vaguely like the arguemnts eminating from faux-populist wingnuts like Michelle Malkin against capitulation to the Great Arab Menace. As we agonize over the correct middle ground to take, rightwingers swoop in to self-righteously accuse liberals of hypocracy. It's like the Iraq War debate writ on a small scale. Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling.
4 Comments:
I think this operates as a more painful wedge for Republicans than Democrats -- the feelings are more intense on that side. Democratic opponents of this can happily tolerate Kevin Drum, while Malkin has to snap at Bush.
I think Bush is doing well enough on the terrawah that this won't damage him a lot. But driving wedges between Bush and lower candidates in Senate/House races may be helpful to us this year.
There's a lot we can say after Bush uses the "racial profiling" talk -- for example, that the UAE needs to do more to help us stop nuclear proliferation before we let them run our ports. I don't have a grasp of whether that's a good response policywise, but it sounds pretty good politically.
I disagree; I think W has crossed a serious line with the 'culture conservatives' on this. I have friends who defended the guy on literally everything before this (including torture & eternal stays in Gitmo) who now say "He's sold us out." That is incredible in its own right. I didn't think there was anything he could do that would alienate them.
As more details about this come out (such as the administration waiving requirements to keep records on US soil), this is only going to get worse for W. I find it bitterly amusing that he is getting bitten by the dogs he has fed for so long: racism, fear, xenophobia, religious bigotry.
nightshift, I agree Bush is getting hounded by his party and that his Administration's see-no-evil approach (now Snow didn't know about the deal!) is eroding his CW points. But the same thing happened with Harriet Miers and Bush survived; the Republican base hates Democrats and what they represent (including, maybe mainly, plualism) more than they'll ever grumble about Bush. And Bush isn't going to be the subject of the next big vote in 2006 (except on the left).
I agree with nightshift - this has major downside potential for Bush. What stands out for me is how badly - as usual - he's handled it. When this first came up, he could have said "I understand Congress's concerns, balancing free trade and national security is one of the great issues we constantly face, blah blah blah." That would have bought him some time to clean it up, meet with leaders in Congress, pretend to take them seriously, and make a phone call to the Sheikh (don't know the name) in Dubai, and get some kind of pledge from him about how his country understands Americans' concerns. After all, the absolutely last thing the elite in the UAE want to be associated with terrorists - that would devastate their economy.
But of course doing all of that, i.e. calming fears, mitigating irrational reactions, brokering a compromise, encouraging people to see both sides of an issue - are things utterly anathema to Bush's political style.
Finally, the intraparty warfare that has so long characterized Democrats et. al. is hitting the Republicans. I have to remind myself that the issues are serious; otherwise I'll have too much fun watching the fireworks.
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