Port Deal: DOA

I don't like to make too many predictions on this blog or in my personal conversations regarding politics or current events. However, when I DO make prognostications, I'm usually 75%-80% sure that they're going to come to fruition. In other words, I don't gamble; I make calculated bets. Additionally, I try to steer clear of the predominant news stories of the day, as there are plenty of bloggers, op-ed columnists, and television talking heads weighing in on those topics. My own humble opinions will, no doubt, wind up echoing that which has already been opined elsewhere. Taking all this into account, and without going too far into the particulars, I think the U.A.E. port deal is a dead one. Here's why:

Second terms are notoriously crappy for most presidents. Taking a look at the last few two-term presidents pretty much bears this fact out. Eisenhower had his second term wrecked by the Gary Powers-U2 incident over the Soviet Union, Nixon had the obvious Watergate debacle, Reagan had Iran-Contra (which I still think he was right to be involved in, given the particulars), Clinton had Lewinsky (which I think did not warrant impeachment; letting the lower courts slap him around for his malfeasance would've been much smarter for the congressional GOP'ers), and Bush has got any number of things bogging him down. In essence, presidents seem to get sloppy in their second terms. It could be burn-out to some extent, both for the presidents and their staffs, or it could be that without the burden of re-election hanging over their heads, they stop monitoring the particulars. Either way, this UAE port deal is going to be killed. Congressional Republicans like Pete King (a Queens guy who's constituency is Nassau County on LI) claim that they came out of a White House briefing regarding the port deal MORE worried about it than before. In essence, Bush is going to lose his congressional Republicans if he doesn't kill this deal. Worse than that, his congressional Republicans are being put in vulnerable positions by the president's stubborn refusal to even consider killing the deal. I don't think that the Democrats will regain the House on this issue, but it's not out of the question that it is a possibility. Democrats taking a stand on defense is almost laughable at this point, with their vehement rhetoric regarding the Patriot Act renewal, NSA wire-tapping of international calls emanating from domestic locations, etc. But if people get pissed off enough, the Democrats might gain seats merely from protest votes alone. And what happens if the Democrats get the House? Payback time, in the form of the Articles of Impeachment, which the likes of the lunatic John Conyers would just love to invoke.

Bush is terribly tone deaf on this one, just the same as he was tone-deaf with the Harriet Mieirs nomination. He'll eventually get it, because he has no choice BUT to get it. But in the process of all this, he's got people, not just on one side of the aisle but BOTH sides, questioning the sanity of this deal.

It's dead. That's my prediction.