Thursday, March 09, 2006

Republicans* are stupid

*by Republicans I mean the geniuses in the congressional leadership. I really don't know why they made such a big deal about the ports thing. I suppose it was just to free themselves from the President, proclaim his lame-duckery to the world. That may be a good move on their part, because now they can go back to their districts and distance themselves from his dropping poll numbers. But it's not good for the party, or good for the country.

Sure, the party's break with the President was fairly inevitable, but they should have waited just 8 more months to break free of the administration's skillful but fairly draconian influence. Now the ugly faultlines in the Republican coalition are showing themselves at maybe the worst moment. Now allow me to back-peddle. The break was going to happen, and maybe its better to let it happen now and get some of the vitriole out and remap the common ground before we head into the 2008 cycle, maybe get a healthier relationship between the wings.

But couldn't they have picked something else to do it over? The ports deal was the worst thing to go head-to-head with the President on. Dubai and the UAE as a whole are some of our best buddies in the Middle-east, and among the freest to boot. We recently moved most of our Saudi Arabian assests there, and our naval base there is the biggest outside the US (and its run by the same guys Cognress just forced out). Just heard on Fox that Dubai might now be reconsidering how many Navy ships it will allow in that port.

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