Residual Forces

Get ready to watch ‘PortGate’ leave the media’s list of things to overreact on. Especially since Former President Clinton and his cronies were trying to massage the deal’s chances of happening while his ‘wife’ was trying to say no.

WASHINGTON — While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was ripping President Bush’s handling of American ports management, Bill Clinton was pushing for one of his favorite White House aides to be hired to defend the deal. The former president proposed to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) his onetime press secretary, Joe Lockhart, as Washington spokesman for the UAE-owned company, Dubai Ports World.

So I guess my suspicions that Mr. & Mrs. Clinton don’t spend a lot of time together are true.

According to well-placed UAE sources, the former president made the suggestion at the very highest level of the oil-rich state. The relationship between him and the UAE is far from casual. The sheikdom has contributed to the Clinton Presidential Library, and brought Clinton to Dubai in 2002 and 2005 for highly paid speeches (reportedly at $300,000 apiece). He was there in 2003 to announce a scholarship program for American students traveling to Dubai.

Conflict of interest anyone? Political paybacks? Anyone gonna go haliburton mad over this? Media investigation? Congressional hearings? New ban on Presidents, Cabinet members, or senior staffers from lobbying. Oh never-mind.

Lockhart did not flatly deny to me that Clinton had made a pitch for him, but instead said he did not know whether the former president was involved. Lockhart said he was recommended by another Clintonite: Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency chief and now a principal in the Albright Group lobbying firm. Headed by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the company is representing DP World. Lockhart told me “money was not the problem” as he turned down the offer.

So it seems that many people from the former Administration’s highest positions were also very involved in this deal. So…

Ready Set, End media manufactured outrage.

Here’s what is being said in Newsrooms across the country:
“There has to be an ambulance around here somewhere. Um. Find something, anything!
Oh, great, you dug up that Katrina briefing video of Bush we’ve had for a while.
Perfect!
Let’s run this 24-7 for a week, no one will ever remember who DP World is or where their from.”

Send a memo Mr. Clinton, he has got to tell the media when he has something to hide. I mean doesn’t he know that his wife is trying to stop this deal in its tracks? It is almost like the 2 never speak. Huh. I guess he should coordinate his political payback lobbying agenda with his wife’s Presidential aspirations a bit better.