I don’t have too much to say about the UAE port take-over deal because the safety of American ports is a little remote and abstruse for me way over here in Australia. But I wanted to point out a couple of things:

1) Don’t you think it’s weird that Bush is willing to go to the wall over this one? He’s said he’d use his first-ever veto in the service of handing over port safety to a corporation owned by a foreign government with ties to terrorists.

2) I wanted to call attention to the technique Bush is using. A quote:

And so I, after careful review of our government, I believe the government ought to go forward. And I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British (sic) company. I’m trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to people of the world, we’ll treat you fairly.

Shorter version: Are you saying Middle Eastern folks aren’t as good to work with as Great British… um… folks? What are you, some kind of racists or something?

Here it is again, but this time about Iraq’s capability to govern itself:

“There’s a lot of people in the world who don’t believe that people whose skin color may not be the same as ours can be free and self-govern,” Bush said.

It’s exactly what he did when he went after Kerry on his war record. You attack your enemy on issues where you yourself are weak and they are strong.

Modern Democrats own the high ground on racism. Republicans talk equality, but excoriate Equal Opportunity laws, ignore black populations (Katrina, anyone?), rework slavery into an argument for their hateful abortion narrative, and use race-baiting from time to time (a la Willie Horton). So Bush is having a poke at Democrats for being concerned, calling them racist. Puts them on the back foot.

Classic Rove playbook.