Bushworld image over substance comes back to kick them in the head.

If you live by public image with no substance, you will die by public image.
Several weeks ago Karl Rove spoke to the Republican National committee, giving them advice on winning in 1906:
"At the core, we are dealing with two parties that have fundamentally different views on national security," He said. "Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview. That doesn't make them unpatriotic -- not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."
This has, of course, been the mantra of the Bush administration since 9/11. Now it's coming back to bite them big time.

It seems that Cheney and Rumsfeld got King George W. to put down his toy guns long enough to brief him on the sale of our ports to Dubai Ports World - a company owned by the United Arab Emirates' monarchy. And sent him out to once again play a president on TV.
"The more people learn about the transaction that has been scrutinized and approved by my government, the more they'll be comforted that our ports will be secure," He said.
Perhaps not the public image that the "post-9/11-worldview Republicans" want to project.
Those Republicans are abandoning the Bush/Dubai ship as fast as possible. They don't really care whether the criticisms of the deal have any validity. Remember in the new Rove-created right-wing world it's image not substance that counts.

It's hard to believe that there aren't some Bush, or more likely Cheney cronies - if there are any he hasn't shot - who are benefiting from this deal. That's usually the bottom line for this administration.

I have no idea whether the Dubai ports deal makes sense or not. But neither does anyone else at this point. It's not likely at this rate that anyone will stop long enough to find out. As usual the Democrats aren't performing any better than the Republicans. But we'll see.


It's going to be interesting to see how Bush accomplice and current hot potential '08 Republican presidential nominee will be affected by her visit to the UAE Thursday where She met with UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also the ruler of Dubai, the emirate that owns the port operations company, and Crown Prince of the emirate of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahayan.