Podhoretz on the Ports Deal

John Podhoretz suggests that, as in the Harriet Miers matter, the President has, in the end, been aided by those in his party who disagreed with him.

"The president may have been right on the economic and foreign-policy merits of allowing the government-owned Dubai Ports World to manage stevedore operations inside the United States. But he was clearly wrong when it came not only to the politics of the deal, but also to its symbolic significance in the midst of the War on Terror."

I would add to that point that I continue to be troubled that many analysts I respect, including Larry Kudlow, Morton Kondracke, and Rush Limbaugh, continue to ignore the angle that the United Arab Emirates is actively engaged in a boycott of our ally Israel.

Rush Limbaugh today seemed to suggest that it's wrong not to allow Dubai to operate some of our ports since we allow China (through COSCO) to operate the Port of Long Beach in California. My take, as I've said here before, is that deal should never have been allowed to happen either. It's one thing to engage a Communist country economically, in hopes that free market capitalism and interaction between our nations will gradually impact China for the better. It's quite another thing to allow a company from a Communist nation to operate an American port.