The Ports issue discussed

I wanted to point to some of the many good items out there with thoughtful viewpoints and details on the ports issue... Varifrank reminds us that cargo comes into this country by air as well, with Thank you for flying Hyperbole Airlines. My favorite part ... You want to go all "nativist" and start a policy of "keep the darkies out", you go right ahead. Let's do that, lets get this country on a policy of not allowing Air Cargo in the United States that follows the same line of logic that some of you are setting for ship based cargo and we can all go line up at the unemployment office now and beat the christmas rush. The Patriot Post outlines the process of review in Port of Public Opinion. Approval of the DPW proposal underwent three months of interagency review. According to Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, "This review definitely was not cursory and it definitely was not casual. Rather, it was in depth and comprehensive." This is the same review that management companies based in China, Denmark, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan underwent before being authorized to manage terminals in the port of Los Angeles. We might add, China now manages some terminals on both ends of the Panama Canal. Foreign investment in the U.S., including port management, is nothing new. As for the assertion that President George Bush should have known about the proposal, Frances Townsend, his senior advisor for Homeland Security, counters, "Rarely do these [reviews] wind up on the president's desk and that's only after there has been an investigation and there is some disagreement. This didn't get there because none of the agencies who reviewed it had any objection." A personal viewpoint from a friend, an Army officer who travels through Dubai on his way in and out of Afghanistan ... "I've passed through Dubai twice in the past 3 months and the place is more pro-US than King County." [Ed. note : This was written on Monday, but did not publish - just catching up!]