Smithers MINNEAPOLIS

Conservatives say that kind of crap all the time.

Notice how many Afghanistan and Iraq war vets are coming home and running for office as Democrats? Tim Walz is running against Republican Gil Gutknecht for the Minnesota 1st Congressional seat.

Pay close attention to how these Democrats and former soldiers are treated by their opponents during the campaign. Notice how conservatives support the troops while they are off fighting the President’s bullshit war but then attacked without mercy when they come home and try and serve their country by running for public office.

President Bush digs himself in deeper:

“After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward,” Bush told reporters who had traveled with him on Air Force One to Washington. “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 company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, `We’ll treat you fairly.’”

Atrios responds:

It isn’t a “company from the Middle East.” It’s a company controlled by a foreign government.

Conservatives are now going to get a lesson in how pig-headed and stubborn their cherished “can’t-do-wrong” President can be.

“They ought to listen to what I have to say about this. They’ll look at the facts and understand the consequences of what they’re going to do. But if they pass a law, I’ll deal with it with a veto.”

Read as: Fuck you, don’t question me. I’m the President.

I guess, now knowing that this UAE corporation is controlled by the UAE government, I am more understanding of the concerns around this issue. Why “all of a sudden” is a middle eastern company, controlled by a middle eastern government, held to a different standard than a privately owned British company?

Oh, I don’t know…

MSNBC:

Two Republican governors are threatening legal action to block the handover of U.S. port operations to an Arab-owned firm, days after the Bush administration’s blessing sparked criticism amid concerns of security.

Meanwhile, lawmakers said they will seek quick action in Congress to block a deal under which a state-owned Dubai company would manage major U.S. seaports.

I am all about port security and all, but if we don’t want a corporation from a particular country to buy a U.S. based company, it should not be allowed to be put up for sale in the first place. We went through all this with the Japanese 10 years ago. The only difference is that a bunch of Japanese had not launched a terrorist attack against us during the 1990’s. But it’s not fair to paint all Arabs as terrorists. Especially those who are corporate executives. Terrorism is the last thing these guys want. It’s bad for business.

President Bush is in a no win position on this issue. If he does not prevent the United Arab Emirate based firm from buying the company that operates these U.S. ports he will be seen as not doing enough to protect U.S. security. If he does try and prevent the sale he will be accused of racism.

Sucks to be him I guess…

The Tour of California could be the coolest thing to hit California cycling since the demise of the Coors Classic, but you would never know it by watching the 2am ESPN2 coverage of the prologue time trial.

Paul Sherwin and Bob Roll are covering the race and it’s clear that they are dubbing over the edited tape of the race coverage rather than commenting on the live race. That makes their comments a bit “canned” and phony. The moto-camera work is the worst that I have ever seen. In some cases the moto seems to be at least three blocks behind the cyclist that they are trying to cover. Instead of getting a good look at the rider along the TT course we were treated to the image of a small blob up the road. When they did seem to have the rider filling the frame they seemed to be having some focus problems with the camera.

The prologue was really short, about 5 minutes for the top riders, and they could have done some neat thing with fixed cameras along the course. Maybe the coverage of the stage 1 road race today will be better. I won’t know until tomorrow morning since it’s on in the middle of the night. I don’t have a problem with that since, with digital “Tivo” type recording is so common now days, it really does not matter what time of day the broadcast is. But if they are going to bother to broadcast the race they should at least take the time to do a competent job.