that dubai port deal, again

Broder and Ignatius and the Post editorialists all miss an important point in talking about the bad precedent the rejection of the Dubai Port World deal. Part of the reason Congress and a lot of Americans opposed the Dubai Port deal is because the de facto Bush Administration have been yelling "BOO! BOO! THERE'S AN ARAB TERRORIST STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU WITH A NUCLEAR BOMB AND A VIAL OF SMALLPOX" at frequent politically-convenient times for the past four-and-a-half years.

Is it any wonder Americans are paranoid about Arabs???? The angst about having an Arab company run New York and other ports was a Pavlovian response that rebounded against the Administration, and through no fault of their own, against DPW and the UAE. And Broder & Posties, you can't blame just Chuck Schumer and the Democrats for that -- plenty of REPUBLICANS (NY Congressman King, for one early example) were right there with Schumer in publicly opposing the Dubai deal. That House committee vote was 62-2! I do agree that stoking the fires lit by the Bush-Cheney crowd may not be wise in the long run. But it is wrong just to blame the Democrats (who do not, you may have noticed, actually control Congress) for the Dubai debacle.