I'm glad that the recent controversy about turning American port operations over to the United Arab Emirates has spurred greater concern for the security of our seaports. Regardless of who operates them, we need to be inspecting far more than the current 6% of containers. As for the controversy itself, I'm surprised that President Bush and his political advisors didn't see this bulldozer coming. Why give the Democrats an easily-won national security issue? The President should have recognized that putting a terrorist-harboring nation in charge of our ports is a Bad Idea -- that's a no brainer. It seems inevitable that Congress will block the move and the President will have to change positions, so he'll end up looking weak and foolish. Oh well, everyone makes mistakes, but this seems to be a particularly dumb one.
