Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

I suggest Eschaton should name Washington Post columnist David Ignatius as his wanker of the day.

Ignatius continues to show an incredible naiveness that the Bush administration can be trusted to perform competently even as he highlights some of Bush's failures.

The hubbub over terrorism isn't the biggest problem with the Dubai flap. In a sense, the Bush administration had it coming, after having beaten congressional opponents over the head with the terrorism club for four years. What goes around comes around, and while it may be comical to hear a legislator accuse President Bush of having a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set, the White House made itself a fat target.

The real absurdity here is that Congress doesn't seem to realize that an Arab-owned company's management of America's ports is just a taste of what is coming. Greater foreign ownership of U.S. assets is an inevitable consequence of the reckless tax-cutting, deficit-ballooning fiscal policies that Congress and the White House have pursued. By encouraging the United States to consume more than it produces, these fiscal policies have sucked in imports so fast that the nation is nearing a trillion-dollar annual trade deficit. Those are IOUs on America's future, issued by a spendthrift Congress.

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But as [New York University professor Nouriel] Roubini says, foreigners may decide they would rather hold their dollars in equity investments than in U.S. Treasury debt. "If we continue with our current patterns of spending above our incomes, by 2013 the U.S. foreign liabilities could be as high as 75 percent of GDP and an increasing fraction of such liabilities will be in the form of equity," he explains. "So, let us stop whining about the dangers of unfriendly foreigners owning our firms and assets and get used to it."

Here's how bad it is: The worst thing that could happen to the United States, paradoxically, would be for Arab and other foreign investors to take us at our xenophobic word and decide that America doesn't really want foreign investment. If they pulled out their money, U.S. financial markets would plummet in a crash that might make 1929 look like a sleigh ride.

I would suggest to Ignatius that the invasion of Iraq, the detainment of thousands of innocent Arab Americans and the torture, rape and murder of captives in Afghanistan and Iraq has already demonstrated America's xenophobia to Arab countries.

Yet in Ignatius world, we can trust Bush on the ports deal -- even though Bush now claims he knew nothing about it.

Al-Qaeda claimed it has penetrated the UAE government, and the United States should certainly vet any UAE personnel working in the United States.

But the idea that by purchasing the British company that has been managing six U.S. ports, Dubai Ports World is somehow opening the door to terrorism is, frankly, racist.

Shorter Ignatius: Yes, Bush screws up. Let's trust him on this. Or you're a racist.