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Ports Will Come Back to Bite Democrats

by Rush Limbaugh - Feb 22,2006

RUSH: How many of you people are starting to change your attitude about this? (interruption) Are you, Mr. Snerdley? Yes, I knew you would be, and if it weren’t for this program yesterday, you’d still be with these knee-jerk, simple-minded people who haven’t dared to look into this. Look it, stop and think of this, folks. The liberals always say that they are the smart ones among us, that they are the nuanced, that they ‘see shades of gray,’ while people like me, Rush Limbaugh, why, we’re simpletons! We’re simple-minded. ‘Everything is black and white, good and evil, right and wrong!’ They say I’m mean and I’m this and I’m that. Well, once again, just listen to the words of a liberal and believe in the opposite of what they say. It’s right there in the news on this story.

The liberal focus on the Dubai port issue is: ‘Don’t outsource our port security,’ which we aren’t. They aren’t going to be running our port security. This has nothing to do with port security as I have been telling you. Do you know when this story broke? This story broke before the Cheney story. This story’s been out there longer than the Cheney story has been out there. Do you feel manipulated by the mainstream press? I told you last week, John Gambling, who is on WABC in New York, two hours prior to this program is, had Ann Compton of the White House press corps on during that whole Cheney kerfuffle, and he said, ‘Ann, what about this port story?’

She had no idea what it was. She had no idea what it was. All last week the media’s marching orders were: ‘Screw Cheney! Get Cheney! Indict Cheney! Hope that Whittington dies. Make David Gregory the new pope of media, whatever,’ but this news has been out there long before the Cheney thing hit. I’ve been doing more research, folks, and I’m going to tell you much more than you probably know, maybe more than you will want to know about just how tentacled the United Arab Emirates already are in this country, and I’m also going to tell you the real reason that Chucky Schumer and Hillary Clinton oppose the deal, and it isn’t national security.

They are simply trying to get themselves established as caring about it, because they know the last four years they’ve done a lousy job of making the American people think they have any interest in our national security. They’ve been out there trying to tell us we don’t have any enemies, and all of a sudden we’ve got one, the United Arab Emirates, of all people. I can understand their reaction if bin Laden wanted to buy the ports, but the United Arab Emirates want to buy the ports, and all of a sudden according to liberal Democrats, we have an enemy! This is going to come back to bite them, folks, because they can no longer act like whatever Bush is doing in the war on terror and national security is a waste of time.

Well, they can, but they won’t get away with it, because now they have been rope-a-doped into clamoring from the mountaintops that we need national security. But they say of old El Rushbo, ‘No nuance. No shades of gray. All raw meat to you mind-numbed robots.’ All I’m trying to do is stoke fear, make you frightened, panicked, and so forth — and they are the ones as I say, ‘Who are the deep thinkers. They are the nuanced ones. They are the ones that see shades of gray that are impossible for us mere mortals to see. They are the elites, and they know all.’ Well, I spent the whole program yesterday ‘nuancing,’ and I’m going to continue nuancing now.


Nuance #1: Osama bin Laden didn’t have to buy the World Trade Center to blow it up.
Why would anybody throw away 6.8 to 8 billion, whatever this deal is? Why would anybody throw away $8 billion for the purposes of blowing it up when you don’t have to? All they’d have to do — they own so many other ports — is just load a container with something’s going to blow up when it gets here and send it on its way, and then buy what’s left on the cheap.


Nuance #2: The “tsunami” loses sight of what’s being sold!
The business is not a port inspection business.
It is a container port loading and unloading business!

Nuance #3: The largest company in this business is Hong Kong’s Hutchinson Ports. They refuse to invest in the United States. They don’t want to buy our ports. You know why? Because they don’t want to mess with the unions, and they don’t want to mess with the political land mines that go along with it. The second largest in this business is Denmark’s APM Terminals, (whispering) and those are white European foreigners and you know what those white European foreigners did to the Indians, and you know what they did to women, and you know what they did to animals, and you know what they did to the land. And the second biggest company is Denmark’s APM Terminals, white European foreigners. The next largest is Singapore PSA, owned by Singapore. (whispering) That’s Asians, “yellow people.” You know about them. And then, of course, Dubai World Ports, that would move them into fourth with this deal. And you know about them. (whispering) Arabs. Bombs! Blown-up ports! So we got the Hong Kong people, (whispering) the communist Chinese! Everybody knows the commies, the ChiComs, run Hong Kong.

Nuance #4: These foreign companies are not only foreign, but they are modernizing their ports all over the world, making container loading and unloading faster, safer, and more efficient, and I should say with less union assistance, which is, let me just cut to the chase, that’s why Hillary and Schumer oppose the deal because they have heard from the AFL-CIO about it. That’s why. Stand by, folks.

Nuance #5: It’s an election year. The left is so vulnerable on national defense that they are having to track as far to the right of the Republicans as they can on this port issue. They’ve been praying for an opportunity that they could see an enemy somewhere and they finally had it shown up in the United Arab Emirates.


Nuance #6: The left is pulling a John Kerry. Note, they’re not demanding to “Stop the sale!” and there’s some Republicans in on this, too, I know. They’re not demanding to stop it. They’re demanding to stall it. “They want to be able to investigate it, sailor! Need a moratorium to look into what really happened.” Then we find out that Bush didn’t even know as we pointed out yesterday until after it was a done deal, yet he is standing by it. They want to be able to stall the deal, the Democrats do, so they can look the voters in the eye and say, “I opposed this sale before I supported it,” or “I support this sale before I opposed it,” whichever it turns out to be.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Let me tell you what it is that inspires this in me — or, not inspires, but what tempts me in this direction. When I see conventional wisdom, when I see a tsunami, when I see a stampede, that’s the first red flag. There’s something about it. It’s been that way all my life. I’ve never been a conformist or a conventional wisdom kind of person, and when I see this, it sends up all kinds of red flags, and I start listening to the conventional wisdom, and it sounds so uninformed and it sounds so missing in numerous detail that it makes me curious to find out what this is all about. So we have Senators Menendez, Senator Clinton, Lautenberg, Schumer, Dodd, Boxer, they’re all up in arms over this, particularly Hillary and Chuck Schumer.

They’re in a contest now to see who can be the first to actually kill the deal. (interruption) Well, they didn’t, as the New York Sun mentions today: ‘None of these politicians, so far as we recall, made a peep when the government of the United Arab Emirates donated $200,000 to fund a professorship in Middle East studies at Columbia University that was filled by a virulently anti-Israel and anti-Bush professor named Rashid Khalidi. That issue was aired by the August 5, 2004, editorial in The New York Sun, ‘What the UAE Bought.’ Nor, so far as we can tell, did they protest when, after the death of the president and founder of the UAE, Shaykh Zayid bin Sultan Al Nahayan, Mr. Bush issued a statement on November 4, 2004, mourning the passing of ‘a great friend of our country,’ ‘a close ally,’ who built the Emirates ‘into a prosperous, tolerant, and well-governed state.’

‘Nor do we recall any protest from Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Schumer or Ms. Boxer when President Clinton and Vice President Gore announced in May 1998 that America was selling 80 F-16 fighters to the UAE. Nor did these politicians protest back in December 1996, when the Clinton administration’s assistant state secretary, Robert Pelletreau, went on UAE television to announce: ‘On the international stage, the UAE is universally respected for its generosity and commitment to regional security and fair-dealing. These qualities reflect the exceptional character of Shaykh Zayid, who is truly the father of his country, and a respected statesman.” That’s the Clinton state department speaking in 1996. So Mrs. Clinton, will somebody hold her accountable for these statements? I mean, she was co-president. Of course they won’t hold her accountable, folks! That’s why I’m speaking rhetorically.

This assistant secretary of state went on. ‘We were pleased that the U.S. could offer His Highness Shaykh Zayid medical treatment earlier this year while he was here. President Clinton telephoned him to welcome him and placed the White House at his disposal to make his stay comfortable and productive.’ He may have stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom! The father of the UAE may have stayed in the Lincoln bedroom. He was in the White House. It’s okay for the guy to go to the White House, but not for a company from that country to run these container, shipping ports. ‘So what, one wonders, accounts for the sudden turnabout and interest of all these politicians in the UAE as a potential terrorist threat?

‘The answer got a lot clearer yesterday afternoon when the International Longshoremen’s Association, the AFL-CIO-affiliated union that represents workers at the six ports that would be affected by the Dubai deal, issued a statement praising the politicians complaining about the deal. The union’s statement expressed ‘great concern’ about the transaction. From there, it’s easy to just follow the money – documented by The New York Sun’s examination of Federal Election Commission records – from the political action committee of the International Longshoremen’s Association into the pockets of the protesting politicians. Schumer: $4,500 in campaign contributions from the trough of the Longshoremen.’


Peter King also got some: $5,500 to his campaign. Senator Clinton: $4,500. Senator Dodd: $2,500. Congressman Fossella: $9,500. Senator Boxer: $6,000. Senator Lautenberg: $9,000. Jerrold Nadler, “another outspoken critic of the Dubai deal, has accepted $22,500 from the Longshoremen since March of 2000.” As we’ve always said on this program: “Follow the money, ladies and gentlemen,” and the Democrats, of course, seeking this opportunity to make themselves look tough on national security. But can I mention something today that I also asked you to think about yesterday? Isn’t it ironic that we have this dumb, Texas rube, frat boy defending tolerance and the rights of minorities, and we have the Democratic Party and the nuanced elitist, smarter than everyone else in the room liberals acting on blind racism and profiling?
Isn’t that fascinating ladies and gentlemen? It shouldn’t surprise you, because this is who they are. They are the first ones to notice somebody’s skin color when they see them walking down the street. They are the first ones to notice their gender, and Bill Clinton can do it by mentally undressing them. He doesn’t even need to look at their hair color or anything else. They’re the ones that notice the differences among us, and they’re the ones that tell us we are to ignore it but act on it. They are the ones who claim to represent minorities, stand up for the downtrodden, the hungry, the thirsty. Now, I know this is not the description of the UAE and this port country. They are not hungry and they’re not thirsty, but they are minorities in this country.
Oh yes they are — and I’ll tell you something else. The same people that tell us we cannot profile Sahib as he strides through an airport are the same people telling us we can’t allow these people to come in and have any relationship to the port operations because of where they’re from. Do you realize, to be consistent, any airline that takes off from the United Arab Emirates should not be allowed to land here. The United Arab Emirates should not be allowed to own property here, they should not be allowed to send any cargo here from any of their ports around the world, if they are unqualified and pose a serious terror threat in buying the operations of these ports, then certainly we can’t let them into Columbia University to start teaching Middle Eastern studies, and we certainly can’t let United Arab Emirates airlines land at JFK or anywhere else, and we certainly can’t allow any of the cargo that they ship.
We gotta get the Navy outta Dubai! The Navy does a lot of dock loading and off-loading, refurbishment, replenishment of supplies at the port in Dubai. We’ve got to close the port of Dubai to the Navy. It’s too big a terrorist risk, can’t deal with it. I’m just telling you what you’re going to have to do. If you want to be consistent in your opposition to this then you’re going to have to have to ban all these other interactions that we have, and when you hear so many politicians — and, by the way, there’s some politicians for this. Jimmy Carter. Does it bother me to be on the same page? Yes. I can’t tell you how much. But I believe what I believe, and this is what you people have come to expect. I’m not going to say what you want me to say.
I’m not going to say what I think you want me to say. I’m not going to moisten the finger, stick it in the air, and see which way the wind is blowing just to please you, and if I happen to be on the same side as Jimmy Carter, it’s his problem, and if I happen to be on the same side as McCain, who is also… McCain had an interesting choice of words: “We should avoid the rush to judgment on this and take some time out and really examine it,” which I have to admit, folks, I was frightened when I read that yesterday, when McCain sounds like me, but again, I concluded as in the case with former President Carter, it’s McCain’s problem.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT


RUSH: Mr. Snerdley just said to me, “The thing that really bothers me about this is the seeming incompetence of the White House. Bush is out yesterday at some renewable energy lab while this whole story is raging, and just missing the whole point. They just seem to be a step off, a step behind and so forth.” This story was out before Cheney, before the Cheney hunting accident. It was ignored. That’s why I asked you at the beginning of the program, “Do you feel manipulated a little bit?” They didn’t even know about this last week; the story is over a week and a half old. But, let me give you some political observations.
I’ve already given you the Democrat political scene on this, and I think they’re missing it. I think they’re sitting and flexing their muscles and saying, “Look at us! We’re the ones that care about national security on this issue. We’ve taken this issue away from President Bush. Why, President Bush has given up on national security! It’s our issue now.” That’s what they think. I heard Tim Russert say it on television, and he made my point: Usually it’s the Democrats that are nuanced about things and Bush is a simpleton. It’s the other way around here. The Democrats are the ones that are strong on national security.
Well, that’s a problem because they haven’t been, and they have refused to see an enemy. Now all of a sudden they see an enemy, and it’s the United Arab Emirates, but the second thing: Let’s talk about the Republican fallout for just a second. Bush is not running for anything again, but he knows he wants to maintain the house, wants to maintain the majority in the House and Senate. This is an election year. If you take a look at all these Republicans opposing Bush, what are they doing? They’re establishing independence, they are illustrating they’re not sycophants, they’re illustrating they have their own minds.
They are illustrating that they can’t be whipped into shape by the White House. This will set them up well to campaign when the campaign season heats up later this year. I think this is a possibility of a bunch of rope-a-dopes going on in there. How about the way the president is sounding on this? Oh, man, I wish we would have heard him sound like this on a couple or three other issues, but he’s saying, “To hell with you people. You go ahead and pass this; I’m going to veto it. I promise you I’m going to veto it.” Here, listen to what he said. This is audio sound bite #1 out there, Mike.
BUSH: If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward. The company has been cooperative with the United States government. The company will not manage port security, the security of our ports will be — continue to be managed by the Coast Guard and the customs. The company is from a country that has been cooperative on the war on terror, been an ally in the war on terror. The company operates ports in different countries around the world, ports from which cargo has been sent to the United States on a regular basis. I think it sends a terrible signal to friends around the world that it’s okay for a company from one country to manage the port but not a country that plays by the rules and has got a good track record from another part of the world can’t manage the port.
RUSH: He went on to say after this that if Congress passes a law preventing the sale that he’ll deal with it with a veto. So I have to ask you another question. Those of you who have stuck with the president even though he wandered off the path when it comes to spending and some of these other, you know, straight-down-the-middle conservative issues, you’ve stuck with him primarily because of the security threat, the war on terror, and up against the Democrats, he has appeared deadly serious about not letting another attack like 9/11 happen. You have to just throw all that out if you think that this deal is bad. If you think Bush can be snookered like this, then he hasn’t been worth supporting on any of this national security stuff up to now — and yet I see people doing that.

People who would not abandon Bush when they otherwise would have because he stuck to his guns in the war on terror, despite the unspeakable things being said about him all around the world, in this country, ex-presidents, ex-vice presidents, running around the world saying unspeakable things about him and his country, and he stuck to it. But now all of a sudden we’ve gotta discard that because Bush is an idiot; Bush is stupid. ‘Bush, I guess he doesn’t realize who our real enemies are.’ I’ll tell you what I think about the United Arab Emirates, having been there. I think they want to be more like us than they want to be like a Middle Eastern country. I think they want to be more like us. I don’t think they want to be a terror capital. They’re too interested in economics. You have to have been there to see some of it. Here’s Christine in Great Falls, Montana. We’ll go to the phones first with you. Welcome to the EIB Network.

CALLER: My gosh, thank you.

RUSH: Thank you.

CALLER: It’s a wonderful pleasure. I’ve been listening to you for years now and I never thought I’d get to talk to you.

RUSH: Thank you very much for calling.

CALLER: Can I say thanks to my husband, Air Force husband, the Adopt-A-Soldier guy?

RUSH: Sure.

CALLER: Lives in Lake Washington, double bogeys, because since he’s sponsoring us, I get the added benefit of listening, too.

RUSH: Okay, thank you very much.

CALLER: Well, thank you so much for setting me straight on this UAE port deal. I was a little nervous about it, and I didn’t really understand what it was all about. So your yesterday show, you’ve made me figure out it’s basically a land title transfer but nothing else is going to change, but the thing I’m more concerned about is if these tsunami surfers, if they stop this port deal, it’s going to reinforce the Arab nations’ dislike and the radical hatred of us.

RUSH: Now, you’re partly correct on that. I think we’re talking about two different groups of people. I don’t think the United Arab Emirates are Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is — and let’s be honest about this, folks. It’s time everybody understood this. From the ‘insurgents,’ the terrorists in Iraq, to Al-Qaeda and their related groups and all these people that are burning flags around the world over these cartoons of the prophet, we’re not talking about a ‘religion.’ We have been snookered. We’ve been led to believe we’re talking about a religion with deeply held views, and we all have religious freedom. We all must respect everyone’s religion.

They’re hiding behind a religion! It isn’t a religion that they’re practicing. These are fascists. These are murderers. These are totalitarians. They’re ideologues, and they’re using a religion to advance what they otherwise believe. They already hate us. They’re not going to change their minds about us one way or the other on the United Arab Emirates deal. That bunch that hit us on 9/11 is still out there, still plotting, still trying to do it in as many places as they can around the world, including here — and whether we do this deal or not, it’s not going to make them like us any more if they do the deal with the United Arab Emirates.

It’s not going to make them hate us any more if we don’t do the deal. You have to admit we have a foreign policy involving the war on terror that goes beyond the military, and it is cultivating freedom and democracy in some of these oppressed areas — and by that I mean some of these dictatorships, some of these monarchies. Like I said yesterday, ‘Sun Tzu and The Art of War: the best way to beat your enemy is make him your friend; if you can’t do that, you shoot him.’ You have to conclude that the war here cannot be totally won militarily; it’s going to take allies. You also have to assume that not every Arab likes living in the circumstances where he, too, could be blown up if he doesn’t go along with what these Islamofascists want to do.


You know, individuals are individuals, and unless we’re going to typecast and profile and stereotype and assume that everybody in the Middle East is no different than Al-Qaeda, if you want to look at that way, feel free to, but I choose not to, and I choose to see these United Arab Emirates people in a different light. I do think they want to be more like us, and if we don’t do the deal, they will get angry and mad, and that would be a change. I don’t know what they would do. Who knows what they would do. But the president is right about one thing: When you’re reaching out and seeking allies in this fight, and when we’re talking about freedom and democracy in as much a part of the world as possible — democracies don’t attack their neighbors; democracies don’t wage war.
They defend themselves when necessary, but they don’t go out and try to conquer. They liberate. We liberate instead of conquer and that’s what we’re trying to do in Iraq. You know, to help further, if we’ve got some people that want to be like us in that part of the world, I say, “Promote it.” If they want to be like us, and if we’re going to misunderstand their desire to be like us into saying, “It’s a trick. We can’t trust them and so forth,” then repeat it. Make sure every economic entity that comes from or has association with the United Arab Emirates is also kicked out of the country, from their airlines to all the shipping that comes from their ports around the world into the US, we’ve got to suspend it because we can’t trust them. Here’s Dennis in Brooklyn. Dennis, welcome to the program, sir.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. Listen, this is a bad idea, bad deal that the president is trying to push through. He didn’t know about it for two days, according to you and what I’ve read, like you say, the last week and a half, it’s been little in the papers, and yet he’s adamant about and very defensive about this. He’s hasn’t connected the dots.
RUSH: No, it’s not that he didn’t know about it until two days ago. He didn’t know about it prior to it being finalized. It’s a private sale. There’s a government agency that handles the approval for these kind of things. This happens all the time. A foreign entity wants to buy property in the United States; they have to go through rigorous tests. Bush doesn’t get involved with all this. He’s the president of the United States. You know, it’s brought to his attention after this bunch of affirms it or turns it down, that’s exactly what happened.
CALLER: It just seems like it was done in the dead of the night. They wait 25 days to check this out, but yet when it has to do with national security, it should take 45 days. They pushed it through. Treasury secretary Snow has ties to a firm before he came into the Bush administration, that sold to this here DP World. There’s ties that go beyond with the treasury department as far as tracking the bank accounts of Al-Qaeda, and they’re not checking into this. It just seems too quick for such a big, multibillion-dollar deal, Rush.
RUSH: Well, now, I think what you’re illustrating… See, I understand your concern. You are at Ground Zero. You’re in Brooklyn, and you’re at target one, and I totally understand your concern, but I think you’re creating some conspiracies here, Snow and the treasury and the multibillion-dollar deal got done too quick, and that raises a red flag. I’m not going to try to talk you out of any of this, because I can tell you’re passionate about it, and I haven’t firmly decided here. I’m just sharing my whole experience trying to inform myself about this, and my own thought process with you. But, I do think that what you’re actually illustrating is the mistake that I think the White House has made here is one of communication. There has not been an ongoing effort to explain or communicate to people that this was being done, it was in the process of being done, and they should have understood that once the news of this broke after it was a done deal, that there’s going to be the reaction and the tsunami that there has been. It’s the United Arab Emirates. It’s the Middle East. You know, all the things that comprise this tsunami, they should have known are going to be there, and so I think more than anything it’s a White House communication problem more than it is a substance of the deal problem.
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