Port Snort Was the Perfect Panic

RUSH: Curt in Virginia Beach. You’re up next on Open Line Friday as we go to the phones. Welcome, sir.

CALLER: Hi, Rush.

RUSH: Hi.

CALLER: I spend a lot of time driving on the road, and Monday and Tuesday I listened to you as well as a lot of other people and listened to those people, you know, just jump at their conclusions and here we are Friday and you are proving to be so right. I mean, you cannot look at this deal without thinking how it would help us both in the Middle Eastern community; you showed your greatness again and I thank you and you’re just proving why you are the Rush.

RUSH: I appreciate that. I really do. Thank you very much for that. It’s interest to note, I’ve gotten a couple of e-mails in the 24/7 account for subscribers, that Governor Ehrlich in Maryland, who was one of the first out of the box this week to put this thing to bed, say (paraphrasing), ‘We can’t do this. This is horrible. This is terrible,’ is now saying as he learns more, he’s moderating his view on this. What’s the term, ‘change of heart’ or some such thing. I’ll tell you what this is like. Let me — you remember the movie, The Perfect Storm? We have here was the perfect panic, and it seems like — Daniel Henninger has a great piece in the Wall Street Journal again today on, you throw a news story in front of a bunch of politicians, and you get a week-long panic. You get Cheney, you get this, and no matter what the story is, politicians today react without thinking, without knowing. He compares them to Yosemite Sam, the old cartoon character. He just fired everything, doesn’t matter. He wasn’t even aiming, just: fire, fire, fire! Hope to hit something.

That’s what’s happening on Capitol Hill today. People on both sides of the aisle hear a little bit of a news story, don’t even know what it’s about, bam! start firing away, race to the cameras. Hillary Clinton and Menendez, “I’m going to introduce emergency legislation to prevent this. This is not going to happen,” and they all look like fools. It was almost like a terrorist attack was only hours away when they heard the news. So you have here what I think The Perfect Panic. What do you suppose happens when 2006 politics and a liberal lust for power and longshoreman union power and Bush hatred and uninformed reporting and the GOP’s fear of losing power all get tossed into a stew pot, and then you add in a dash of xenophobia and a touch of racism, and what did you do get? Exactly what we had earlier this week: The Perfect Panic. I’m going to be fascinated — with my I won’t be. That’s the wrong word. It will be interesting to see how this story changes course over the weekend and into next week, because it cannot be sustained the way it was earlier in this week. More and more people are going to look at it and say, “Oooh, gotta start moving to the center.” Some of them are already starting to do that. Some people still playing hardball. New Jersey is going to sue to stop the deal.
Senator Menendez is still on a racecourse here and a couple other people are, the longshoremen not going to take this standing down, laying down, sitting up, bending over, whatever position they get themselves in day-to-day. But the whole process of informing the uninformed has just gone by the wayside here. In Henninger’s column today, he has a great line. “Within hours, if not minutes, Senator Hillary Clinton and Robert Menendez announced emergency legislation to ban foreign governments from controlling operations in our ports.” We’re talking about one terminal in New York and New Jersey. There are 885 such ports — terminals and so forth around the country. This deal includes 24 of them. Remember that show Xena, The Warrior Princess? Remember that show? It was the American feminists favorite show. (interruption) You never watched it, Xena? Oh. Snerdley didn’t watch the show, he just watched Xena. What was her name, what was her name? Lucy Lawless! That’s what her name was: Lucy Lawless. Well, Xena, The Warrior Princess. Hillary Clinton is Hillary the Xenophobic Princess, if you ask me.
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RUSH: We had Hillary Clinton yesterday interviewed by an unidentified male reporter after the Armed Services Committee hearing and the port deal — and I began to notice some hedging from Mrs. Clinton’s original xenophobic position on this, her panic position of immediate legislation on Monday, immediate legislation to block the “sale” of any of our ports and any of our terminals to foreign interests at all. (Laughing.) And then yesterday said (paraphrasing), “Weeeeell, we’re going to look at this now. We’re going to delay here 45 days. I think we can work out a deal.” So she’s clearly allowing for the possibility the deal can go through. This afternoon, just dangerously close to us here. She’s down in Miami, and she made a speech. The audio here has a little bit of a buzz in it, but this is what she had to say, and I’m playing this for you for a specific reason.
HILLARY: I had a continuing disagreement with the administration…about what it will take to protect our ports, to protect cargo in our airplanes, to protect our infrastructure, our mass transit, our bridges, our tunnels, to prepare Americans in the event of a chemical, biological or radiological attack on our shores —
RUSH: Come on…
HILLARY: — and that’s why I…was…so…amazed…by the announcement of that contract, and yesterday…in the Armed Services Committee…I think we successfully demonstrated —
RUSH: Finish it!
HILLARY: — that the administration had not done…the job…it was expected to do, that under the statute as written, they…had…a higher duty…than the one they fulfilled.
RUSH: All right. Well, we could deal with that later. I don’t happen to agree with her on that but that’s beside the point. First thing I noticed, she sounds asleep. No screeching. No energy. I think this notion that she sounds and looks angry, that Ken Mehlman said, I think she’s reacting to it — and she’s trying to find some middle ground, and in this one she just sounds boring. But the political importance of this, she says, “I’ve had a continuing disagreement with the administration about what it will take to protect our ports, to protect our cargo.” The ports! The reason the Democrats love this, is because the ports is the one area of security they have tried to make an issue. Remember Kerry’s campaign? He was all upset that we only inspect 5% of the cargo coming into the country.

So the Democrats think, along with what Bush is doing here and the administration is doing, that this focus on ports can launch them back to a position of superiority on the national security issue. Now, I have the latest Rasmussen report poll out, and it’s not good, ladies and gentlemen. It is not good. ‘Just 17% of Americans believe that Dubai Ports World should be allowed to purchase operating rights in several US ports. A Rasmussen report survey found that 64% disagree and believe the sale should not be allowed. Just 39% of Americans know that the operating rights are currently owned by a foreign firm; 15% believe the operating rights are US-owned, and 46% don’t know. From a political perspective, President Bush’s national security credentials have clearly been tarnished due to the outcry over this issue. For the first time ever, Americans have a slight preference for Democrats in Congress over the president on national security issues: 43% say that they trust the Democrats more on this issue, today, while 41% prefer the president.

‘The preference for the opposition party is small, but the fact that Democrats are even competitive on the national security front is startling. In election 2002, the president guided his party to regain control,’ blah, blah, blah, blah. It goes through the history of things. So 17% of you believe the UAE should be allowed to purchase operating rights; 64% of you disagree. Only 39% of you know that the operating rights are currently owned by a foreign firm;15% believe the operating rights are US owned, and 46% aren’t sure.

So that’s a grand total of 61% who have no clue! Sixty-one percent have no clue what this is about and they have render their opinion in a poll granting — this is what I meant by a perfect panic ginned up on Monday, media helping everybody that put their foot in the water on this had no idea what they were talking about, created this perfect panic. I don’t worry about the poll. Bush is not on the ballot anywhere, and the Republicans, whether by accident or by design, got themselves on the right side of this poll, anyway, early on this week by reacting in their own version of panic as well. So the tide will turn on it at some point, but for now, you people — well, not you, but the majority of Americans — it’s not a majority, but a plurality of Americans believe the Democrats are better equipped (laughing) to protect the country than the president. (laughing)

Okay, Scott — Oh! One other thing about Dubai Ports World, United Arab Emirates — and this is for those of you in New Orleans. I learned a stunning fact today. I did not know this. Something like $126 million of foreign aid actually came in for Katrina relief. One hundred million of those dollars came from the United Arab Emirates. I’d give it back. Obviously tainted. Starting Monday, that money should have been transferred back to the donors faster than Abramoff’s money went back to him. It has to be tainted money. Who knows how it’s been contaminated.

I know it’s probably electronic transfer but it’s gotta be cash at some point. You know how powerful these people are — and I know what some people have a real concern. You know, what’s going to happen is this. If this deal goes through, one day a giant cargo ship is going to arrive from the port of Dubai, which we trust, and it’s going to go into one of the ports in this country, don’t even where, don’t know who is going to operate this port — and on this cargo ship will be these giant cargo containers, and a longshoreman will stroll over in a couple weeks after the ship arrives — don’t want to hurry too much — to open the cargo containers, and when they do, fully fueled and loaded F-16s sold to the United Arab Emirates by us will jump out of those cargo containers and start flying around and attacking targets in the United States!

You heard it. You heard it here first. You have been warned.

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