[saveliberty]

Good morning, fellow Snowflakes! Here’s your Tony Snow Show ping.

Sorry for the early post. Sadly, I will not be available to participate in today’s Thread. Thank you as always for the quality and quantity of your posts. :-)

Thank you as always!

Cheers,

saveliberty

We all agree that we love Tony. And we also love Lucianne Goldberg! Here’s Reason #402 :-) Today, she gives us this-

Oh, please...not another week of the one-story press

[sono]

Morning, Folk

[conservativecorner]

The Facts Win

After sifting through mountains of paper and doing acres of research, the port story doesn't seem like a big issue. But Tony will address any concerns.

Tony may want to look at these articles explaining the important role the UAE plays in the operation of HAMAS. On the HAMAS front, please read "welcoming terror to US Ports.

Welcoming Terror to U.S. Ports By Rachel Ehrenfeld and Paul E. Vallely FrontPageMagazine.com | February 23, 2006

Bush’s Port Jihad By Robert Spencer FrontPageMagazine.com | February 23, 2006

[A Citizen Reporter]

"Should more people be included in decisions of this nature?"

Prolly not. Unless they can demonstrate some basic ability to master the facts. (The interview yesterday with P King comes to mind, but I digress.)

I think we ought to collect bone-headed quotes on the port issue. Now that the story is beginning to die a slow death, the funnier quotes are coming out.

My favorite, so-far today, was from Joe Biden appearing on F & F. When asked if his opinion had changed since Tommy Franks had spoken up about the UAE, Biden said that he still had reservations. Apparentely Joe Biden believes that if a dirty bomb is sent into an American port, it will be written on a bill of lading. And because of that, it is dangerous for us to have this an Emirates company responsible for that paperwork.

[sgtbono2002]

I get most of my information right here off Free Republic. That in itself might not be a smart thing to admit, but from what I have gathered here
1. This thing has been around for 5 months.
2. The reason most of us havent heard about it is that there is a law saying deals like this are to remain secret till they are done. Now the Dems helped pass that law.
3.There are a lot of things tied in with this including us using ports in the Middle East controlled by UAE
4.This isnt all that big a deal.
5. The Democrats had a hand in this deal from the beginning.

Now nothing I have stated here isnt available in the Free Republic Archives.

[Clint N. Suhks]

And now for The Idol Update…not that I’d ever watch it.

Gone

Falsetto hurt my ears…bu-bye

Good

Better

Star

ROCK STAR!

[LibertyLee]

Good morning, SL and ALL, I need my morning caffeine, the rest I'll leave to Tony.

Go Juice

[Unrepentant VN Vet]

Good morning.

Got up too early, so even with the coffee I'm a bit on the grumpy side.

Think I'll go into full LURK mode after about the first five minutes of any more chatter about that port stuff.....my keyboard can't take much more pounding than it got yesterday.

[FOXFANVOX]

Tony, your interviews yesterday, primarily with Peter King, served to take away some of my concern over the process of the ports decision. An interview with Gen. Tommy Franks on Hannity and Colmes gave me confidence in the politics of the ports decision. [I am inclined to go with Franks even if he is on the same side on this one as Jimmy Carter!]

Now a separate issue has arisen. For those who supported the decision because Pres. Bush supported it, turns out he wasn't involved and learned about it in the papers, like we did. This implies, if true, that the President will be portrayed as clueless. If not true, he will be portrayed either as inept or politically tone deaf.

Having said all of that, I am concerned that the increased potential for civil war in Iraq is growing very large while the US media distracts us with the ports "tempest in a teapot".

Last, I can not resist one last poke at my Muslim friends. They have risen up around the world to riot against the Danish cartoonists. Will they also boldly rise up to speak out against their fellow Muslims who have blown up and desecrated their mosques? If not, they risk making their religion into an irrational cartoon of intolerance.

[TomGuy]

UPDATED LIST 02-23-05 7:20 a.m. CDT

A running updated list of those for and those against UAE running US ports?

AGAINST

FReeper Poll 56.2%

New York Gov. George Pataki (R)
Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) [Wants more info]
Baltimore Mayor, Martin J. O'Malley (D)
Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell
Sean Hannity
Mark Levin
Michael Savage
Senator Chuck Schumer (D)
Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist
Michelle Malkin
Debbie Schlussel
Rep. Peter King (R)
Rep. Curt Weldon (R)
Senator Tom Coburn (R)
Senator Hillary Clinton (D)
Frank Gaffney, Jr
House Speaker Denis Hastert (R)
NJ Governor Jon Corzine (D)
Laura Ingraham
Bill Bennett
Rep Mark Foley (R)
Senator Barbara Boxer (D)
Joe Scarborough
Senator Norm Coleman (R) [To hold hearings next month]
Rep. Vito Fossella (R)
Jay D. Homnick, The American Prowler
James Lileks
Senator Robert Menendez (D)
Senator Lindsay Graham (R)
Joseph Farah
Senator Rick Santorum (R)
NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg (R)
NYPost.com
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D)
Senator Susan Collins (R)
Rep. Jane Harman (D)
Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid
NY Daily News
Neal Boortz
Hugh Hewitt
Rep. J. D. Hayworth (R)
Senator Joseph Biden, D-Del.
Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C. ["...not just NO -- but HELL NO!"]
Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y.
Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (R)
Ann Coulter
House Majority Leader John Boehner
Glen Beck
Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director of American Center for Democracy
Maj. Gen. Paul E Vallely (ret)


FOR

FReeper Poll 30.2%

President George W. Bush (R)
and Bush Admin Personnel: Rumsfeld, Chertoff, Mineta, Alberto Gonzalez, [probable] Rice, Cheney

Former President Jimmy Carter (D)
Tony Snow
Rush Limbaugh
AJ Strata
Blogs for Bush
Sea2Sea
FL Governor Jeb Bush (R)
Senator John McCain (R) [goes 'undecided']
Tom Ridge
Dan Bartlett
Dick Meyer, CBS News
Edward "Ted" H. Bilkey, Chief operating officer, Dubai Ports World
former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
Bill Kristol
Senator Joe Lieberman
Michael Medved
Bob Dole
Ken Mehlman, RNC Chairman
Senator John Warner (R)
Bill O'Reilly
Steve Forbes
Gen. Tommy Franks (ret)
Roger Cressey, National Security Council member



====
Makin' a list,
Checkin' it twice,
Gonna find out who's naughty and nice,
Dubai is comin' to town.....

[AliVeritas]

Hey all, been on the phone all morning re: South Dakota/Abortion, sorry for tardiness.

Warning...Links coming...

[AliVeritas]

School Of The Jihad (Hillary goes off the rails)
http://www.anklebitingpundits.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3194

Court Documents: Hospital Gave Lethal Injections to Patients During Hurricane Katrina
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/feb/06022201.html

Hamas received funds from Louisiana?
Feds believe funds for local mosque diverted to terrorist group
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48957

We're Losing
By Ben Stein
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9444

[AliVeritas]

Re: Ports

The facts
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013223.php

Arab Co., White House Had Secret Agreement
(Administration secretly required a company in the UAE to cooperate with future US investigations before approving its takeover of operations at six ports)
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/22/D8FUHNM00.html

Homeland Security remains pretty much a joke -- air, sea, and land http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,61008,00.html . The good news is, the Dubai deal won't make things worse at Baltimore:


At least one of the ports where DP World is set to operate, Baltimore, has been dogged by security shortcomings for years. A Baltimore Sun investigation in June 2005 revealed that the port's fiber-optic alarm system on the perimeter fence malfunctioned and was usually switched off, and that port police were so understaffed that their patrol boats often dry-docked because there was no one to operate them. The newspaper also found that a pair of "video cameras" guarding the entrance to one important marine terminal were actually blocks of wood on poles.

Last summer, a tour of the port, the nation's eighth largest, revealed gaps in perimeter fences, unattended gates, surveillances systems that didn't work and insufficient police patrols on land and sea. State officials have acknowledged security gaps and said they have been working to close them.


It can only get better, apparently . . . .

Good for America
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022206H

[armymarinemom]

I was glad to hear Tommy Franks mention the care and feeding of troops by UAE companies.

[vernvet]

What makes Tony Snow an expert on security? Probably 90% of those serving in Congress and the White house would fail to qualify for a security clearance if they were privates in the military. Those standards are high. A speeding ticket would have disqualified one from getting a top secret clearance when I was in the army. It seems the standard has been lowered in the past thirty years.