To me that's going to be the most interesting thing this weekend. I think they already know that they've overplayed this, but they don't know where to go now. Their loyal minions in the MSM got the first set of talking points and invited all of the "designated hitters" to push them for the shows, but then the ground started to shift under them. Lots of very reasonable sounding voices on both the right and left started to say "wait a minute." And that started to take hold.
The discussion on this thread about this morning's Fox & Friends may mark an attempt by the dims to adjust their arguments:
Ratner's Anti-Globalization Rant: No Foreigners Should Own Ports
So how will lil' Timmy, old Bob, boy George and the rest of the little rascals play this tomorrow? Do they continue with the original xenophobic (and frankly racist) Pat Buchannan like attacks, shift to the more general anti-globalization theme (though that catches up Billary as bad guys) or fall back on the more reliable "this wouldn't have happened if Bush weren't so secret and criminal" campaign?
I'm leaning towards the later being the take away, though I think they'll throw some of all of them against the White House wall and see what sticks.
Keep in mind, the Democrats want it both ways. So, they will continue to blame Bush and give the Democrats a pass on whatever mistakes they made. In other words, just like the failed intelligence concerning Iraq, the Democrats were mislead about the ports because of Bush.
Glad it was you who made the connection to Buchanan, and not me. I was thinking the same thing, Pat Buchanan protectionism, but didn't want to be the first to mention it. Hannity seemed to be catching on to that too this past week.
I'm leaning there with you. It is certainly the case that the approvals of these foreign investment deals is done under the radar, but there are some pretty solid reasons for this, and to top that off, it is a creation of the very bunch that is now complaining about its "secrecy." It still amazes me, however, that someone working on this was not astute enough politically to realize that putting the words Arab and ports together was at least going to create a problem of perception. The President was ill served in this as he was with the Abu Graib mess.
It depends on if Timmy, et al have the new DNC talking points. I agree w you that the latter will be brought out. I also think they'll be some shifting to port security in general (Kerry brought it up in the last campaign and her Shrillness was talking about it this week). Since they don't want to be seen as racist, even though they are, I think they'll shift to we need to learn more about this to make sure the American people are safe, Congress needs to exercise their oversight duties on this issue, and Bush hasn't done anything to make our ports safer, regardless of who is running them.