I agree with you. The Administration is naive in how they handle these issues, thinking that they can just do what is best without explanation - either that or they're stupid and don't learn.
And Congress continued to spout falsehoods after facts had been out there for weeks.
Reasonable people can disagree about this deal, after knowing the facts (of course since this kind of thing isn't new, where was their opposition before?)
And in forums like this one, people are bound to get into flame wars, no matter how much information is available. We've done it before and we'll do it again.
But for our elected representatives to leap to conclusions before knowing much of anything about the situation, and then to continue to mischaracterize the issues despite the facts available, that pisses me off. They're protecting their own skins first and foremost, too afraid to leave the herd, and too lazy to do any learning or teaching on the issue. That is not what I want in DC.
You nailed it. As much as we laughed at ol' pointy ears, for this issue we needed someone like that to sit down down on Larry King Live or some mass media forum with charts & graphs and educate the public and the spineless Congress critters. Bush is utterly incapable of doing it (and shouldn't have to). Others should have done it for him.
"Now, Larry, here is the % of foreign owned terminals over time ... and here is the law Congress devised that resulted in the President not being able to have advance knowledge of the deal ... and here is how security is handled for all of the process steps in importing containers ... "