The negative political fall-out from the UAE port fiasco has caused many Republicans in Washington and around the country to conclude that the people who are supposed to be smartly guiding the Bush Administration must have all fallen asleep at the wheel and, as a result, may be about to drive the entire GOP over a mid-term cliff.
The White House let it be known that the President learned of the ports deal from the press. Jerry Seper of the Washington Times also reported that Treasury Secretary John Snow, one of 12 members of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which had to approve the ports deal, said he, too, learned about it "in the newspapers." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, also a member of CFIUS, said he learned about the deal "over the weekend." Apparently, neither the President, nor the secretary of the Treasury, nor the secretary of Defense, had an aide alert enough to clue in his boss on this issue.
