PORTS OUTRAGE PUZZLES

It's been a long time since I've seen something like a public consensus about an issue. The last two I recall are the Shiavo travesty and Fredo's plan to destroy Social Security. The Feds approving the takeover of 6 U.S. port operations by a state-owned firm from the U.A.E. seems to be the third one of Fredo's second term.

Below I noted that Hannity and Gingrich are against it and tonight, arch-wingnut Tammy Bruce came out against the deal. The GOP governors of New York and Maryland have also spoken out against it. The AOL message board devoted to this topic is overwhelmingly against it. As I type this, Alan Colmes has the conservative father of a 9-11 victim on his radio show and the father is also against this deal. (The link goes to an AP radio clip)

One puzzle is how the White House PR machine botched this so badly. Perhaps they were caught off-balance by the Cheney shooting and hadn't recovered in time to get out in front of this new problem.

Another puzzle is why this problem caught on so quickly and widely with the general public. I had expected the revelations in the Downing Street Memos to wake America up to the criminality of the Iraq War and although many people were affected by the revelations, there wasn't the widespread outrage that seems to be aroused by the port issue. I could say the same about the lack of armored Humvees and body armor in Iraq. Perhaps a clue comes from one caller to Hannity's radio show who asked Sean how the liberal media can get away with all the distortions in its coverage. For these past scandals, I guess too many were still happily trapped in BushWorld and the Republican Noise Machine was still extremely effective.