Smoking doobies in Dubai

Karl Rove announced Bush's backing off from the DP World deal - sometimes it's hard to remember there's anyone there who remembers the concept of responding to public sentiment.

It's fairly ridiculous, and once again hypocritical of America on free trade, to suggest Dubai Ports wouldn't do just as well as the British firm it's buying at running lots of our port operations. The Emirates have in fact been a reliable ally of the U.S. Since when does a terrorist being from there imply guilt for the country as a whole? We still do business with Timothy McVeigh's home country.

It's also unfair to blame Bush for rhetoric turning around on him - he has gone out of his way several times to make the point that we are at war with terrorists, not with Arabs or Muslims. It is not Bush but the Coulters and Malkins and Mike Savage we have to blame for stoking genuine, outright bigotry in this country.

But I can't help but delight at the uproar (or even feel shotgunfreude), just to see the Republican stranglehold across the branches of government continue to break apart. It's almost as if the GOP Congress were just looking for excuses at this point to drive wedges between themselves and the White House. The steaming feculence of the unilateral executive power grab, and its malodorous fumes of detainee abuse and mass illegal spying on ordinary Americans, are not something anyone running for office in the next century is going to want to stay standing near.