3/9: Voting On The Dock Of The Bay

In today's edition, bloggers react to the House vote to kill the Dubai port deal, a House bill concerning online speech, Pres. Bush critics criticizing Bush, fallout from the TX 28 primary, and Sen. Hillary Clinton's anticipated WH bid. Plus, our latest Blogger Spotlight.

PORT SECURITY: Phew! No More Terrorist Attacks Now!

It's been a few days since the proposed sale of ports in 6 U.S. cities from a British firm to Dubai Ports World of the UAE showed up on most bloggers' radar screens. But now that the House Approps Cmte has voted 62-2 to block the deal, it's back all right.

Right-leaning Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, who changed his mind from opposition to support, wonders if the vote "isn't really backlash stemming from the Cartoon Wars 'tipping point' effect, adding: "Perhaps it won't matter, and the UAE will just suck it up, attribute it to politics, and move on. Perhaps they'll still cut a reasonable deal. But just possibly, we're being had. ... I don't know, but I'm very unhappy with how this is going, and this lopsided vote has made me unhappier." Phoenix-based Martin's Musings: "Thank you, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) for being one of the only two people to vote against the measure." Noting that Rep. Duncan Hunter's (R-CA) bill would restrict ownership of "critical infrastructure" to Americans, Daniel Drezner sarcastically one-ups him: "Hey, you ask me, Hunter is being too conservative. Why not require all employees as 'critical infrastructure' facilities to be red-blooded Americans? Why aren't airports and airlines included? Why, do you realize that, even as I type this, there are foreign-born pilots flying state-owned airliners within a few miles of our major cities???!!!"

Conservative deal opponent Michelle Malkin: "Nervous nellies will argue that the House Republican 'hotheads' should have waited for the 45-day review of the deal. But to many knowledgeable observers of the CFIUS [Cmte on Foreign Investments] process, the panel is the root of the problem -- not the solution. As I made clear in my first post on this subject on Feb. 18 and consistently throughout the debate, we simply cannot afford the business-as-usual attitude of the rubber-stampers at CFIUS. And if that means the UAE retaliates by pulling out of business deals with Boeing, as it is threatening to do now, so be it." Citing cong. testimony via Malkin, The Swanky Conservative notes that the Coast Guard "has acknowledged that DP World will be responsible for vetting the people assigned to its U.S. and other operations" and calls that "pretty bad, pretty damning. Bottom line -- I'm not sure I trust any" Persian Gulf "nation with anything like this on this side of 'our' oceans. Not yet."

As was the case last week, most conservatives support the sale, and think the opposition is largely driven by ignorance and xenophobia -- Sean Hackbarth at The American Mind calls Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) a "bozo" for saying we should "keep America's ports in American hands." Hackbarth: "DPW is buying a British company. If the deal is stopped the British company will still be handling loading and unloading at many U.S. ports. Also, in no way does the DPW deal hand over ports to anyone. Ports are owned by local governments. U.S. ports would never be in Dubai's (or any other nation's) hands." Also noting the Lewis statement, AJ Strata calls the anti-deal House majority a "strange and bad alliance" between a "desperate left willing to do and say anything to win votes, and a frightened, skittish right afraid of anything Arab" or even simply foreign. A disappointed Jonathan R. at GOP Bloggers: "House Republicans could have pragmatically examined the details of the DPW-P&O merger and educated the public as to why the MSM-driven hysteria is bunk. Instead, as is increasingly typical, they took the easy path by hitching onto mindless, xenophobic protectionism."

It's harder to characterize the left's reaction. There's not one consensus, but there are several positions. Some focus on the trouble for Bush and the GOP -- NewsHog writes, the bill "challenges Bush to veto a bill which would appropriate $90 billion for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's got to hurt. It's been a ploy used several times by Bush to pass legislation" -- challenging "opponents to commit political suicide by not voting the money for the soldiers. Now the tactic is being used against him, in a very clear sign that many Republicans in the House consider Bush a lame duck." Writes a commenter at TalkLeft: "No wonder he's fighting so hard for the line item veto." Crooks and Liars posts a screen shot from "Lou Dobbs Tonight" that "says it all" -- Frist, with the caption "Good Soldier or Lap Dog?"

Some supporters on the left have the same concerns about the opponents' motives -- Liberal Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam supported the Dubai deal, and is "not normally one to sing the praises of American business, but he is "aware of the benefits that accrue from their commerce to their American workers" -- and he is worried the deal will lead to the cancellation of the Boeing Dreamliner. And while "I normally believe in the power of the ordinary person to make a difference in the political process, in this case the average American as adamantly opposed to the deal. So I'm not averse to bringing in the heavy guns. The DC pols can afford to ignore us as individuals. After all, we're not the fat cats writing their campaign checks. But American corporations are writing those checks and I don't care if they're the only ones who can have a real tempering impact on the idiocy that passes for political discourse around this issue. I hope they speak loud and clear and jawbone those congressional blowhards like crazy." On the other side is activist David Sirota, citing business leaders expressing concern about economic consequences if the deal is killed, commenting: "So there you have it in black and white from Corporate America: profits are more important than security."

Others fault the admin., or challenge press accounts -- Left-leaning Prairie Weather doesn't have a problem with the deal itself, were it to go through, but does have a problem with "how and why the Administration went ahead and did it without the knowledge of Congress." The Gun Toting Liberal disputes the Washington Post's assertion that there are 6 ports "at stake" -- "it's twenty-one ports at stake. 'Bout time somebody starts being a little bit more forthcoming about that. Including the mainstream media, including the Washington Post and the rest of their MSM cronies who have, for some strange reason, insisted upon intentionally ignoring these charges for some reason."

Conservative Mick Stockinger thinks their priorities are out of whack, pointing out an ABC News story about a DHS report finding that truckers "who transport much of the cargo" at NJ and NY ports were issued ID cards "with virtually no background checks." Writes Stockinger: "Amazingly, the DHS report did not generate outrage from Senators Clinton and Schumer. No sir -- the outrage was reserved for a business deal that had been through a complete review and DID in fact employ extensive background checks."

Centrist Joe Gandelman notes the odd coupling of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Michael Savage on Savage's AM radio show last p.m., and the fact that the 2 were in "agreement virtually point-per-point" on the port deal. Gandelman writes, "a description that seemed trite a week ago is now coming true: Bush is becoming a "uniter not a divider."

BLOGS VS. THE BELTWAY: Marking Up Their Territory

GOP activist blogger Mike Krempasky and Dem activist blogger Markos Moulitsas signed a letter, available at RedState in support of H.R. 1606, colloquially the Online Freedom of Speech Act. With a largely new FEC this year, they worry any rules they promulgate will be made hastily and without all the facts: "The FEC has announced that if Congress does not act, they will vote on regulations on March 16. This is why Congress needs to act now. We are encouraged by the proposal from the Center for Democracy & Technology, but we cannot advocate its passage now. It is a solution in search of a problem which has yet to manifest, and therefore requires full study and consideration in Committee." It's not the 1st time they've teamed up to take a stand on an issue, but it's still a bit surprising to see Krempasky posting on the front page at Daily Kos -- although it's not the 1st time he's posted to dKos, either.

Noting that the markup session was set for 3/9, FEC-watcher Allison Hayward wrote on 3/8: "I'm not sure I can bear to watch..." Bearing to watch is Townhall's Tim Chapman, who was at the meeting in the Longworth HOB this a.m., live-blogging: "The committee hopes to report the bill out of committee today. Majority Leader John Boehner has indicated his desire to move the legislation quickly. The goal is to pass the legislation before the FEC makes their ruling on March 16. But, the Senate will have to pass the legislation as well."

Roger L. Simon, no great fan of Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist, compliments him for bringing it up -- but adds: "Unfortunately, though the amendment is filed, there is no guarantee that Frist will be able to 'call up' ... the amendment (co-sponsor: Senator [Tom] Coburn) and get a vote on it. But this is hugely important since a threat to Internet freedom is coming not just from the Chinese and the United Nations, but from our own federal judiciary."

EAVESDROPPING: I For One Welcome Our New Subcommittee Overlords

As noted here yesterday, and further reported by the New York Times today, GOPers on the Senate Intel Cmte have proposed creating a seven-member subcmte to oversee the NSA's eavesdropping program. Legal experts say the plan "would also give legislative sanction for the first time to long-term eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant."

Conservative The Strata-Sphere: "The speed with which the Congress jumped on the Administration's bandwagon to sanction the monitoring of Al Qaeda contacts here in the US is truly stunning." Liberal The Heretik: "If you read between the lines here, the NSA gets a free pass for fortyfive days of surveillance without any oversight at all. 'Probable cause' without judicial review means nothing." Booman Tribune: "We are watching our country slip into an authoritarian state."

Atty Glenn Greenwald takes issue with Senate Intel Cmte ranking Dem Jay Rockefeller, who had criticized the cmte's GOPers for being "under the control" of the WH, but now says the decision was a "step in the right direction." "I'm glad to see that Sen. Rockefeller feels bad about his impetuous remarks where he insinuated that Sens. Hagel, Snowe and DeWine -- "three of the most independent Republicans" in the Senate -- buckled under to White House pressure. That was a completely unfair accusation that had no basis to it at all. Why ever would he think that?"

BUSH: Critics Criticize, Film At 11

A report/column by Dana Milbank in the latest Washington Post -- on a Cato forum featuring libertarian-leaning conservative Bush critics Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan -- have more traditional/Bush-backing conservatives agitated. Mary Katherine Ham: "As a fiscal conservative, I get teed off at Bush. I have concerns about big-spending programs. It happens. It happens to every conservative on one issue or another, with every Republican president, ever. It's part of politics. Using" Sullivan and Bartlett "as a symbol for the rest of us who have quibbles with the administration, however -- as Dana Milbank does today -- seems like a HUGE stretch. Sullivan and Bartlett are both full-on Bush-bashers these days, not just conservatives with quibbles." Ed Morrissey: "I'm not sure why Milbank expresses such surprise -- nor do I understand why the Post headlines this event as a 'conservative forum.' The Cato Institute has always focused on a brand of respectable and rational libertarianism rather than a partisan Republican or generic conservatism. Milbank himseld notes that in the seventh paragraph as well as the fact that its constituency has always found itself on the outside looking in during this administration. Six years into the Bush administration, and Milbank is shocked that Cato criticizes the President, and that few of its members offer a defense?" Per Milbank, James Joyner notes that when Cato "invited 'a few members of the Bush economic team,' none took them up on the offer. Shocking. Why, exactly, would one expect otherwise? What would they have to gain by coming to a hostile forum that would otherwise be virtually ignored (save for this odd A2 placement in the Post)?"

NETROOTS: Where Do We Blog From Here?

2 days after the TX 28 primary loss by blogger-backed ex-Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D), bloggers aren't done chewing it over. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas puts the best face on it: "The bottom line: We helped a campaign that was the walking dead and gave it new life, pumped in resources, and made it competitive. We did much to even the playing field even if ultimately we came up tantalizingly short. And yeah, I know 'tantalizingly short,' alongside 'moral victories,' is about as desirable as the Bubonic Plague. We want more. But this is a long-term movement, building from nothing. And we are sending notice to Democrats that they can't be Bush's bitch and expect a pass."

Looking at the results, MyDD's Chris Bowers writes, the TX 28 race "looks like a repeat of 2004, where our GOTV operations only focused on heavily blue areas of swing states. As a result, like in 2004, we got great turnout in the areas that we targeted, but lost the popular vote because of poor performance in all non-swing states. When will we learn the lesson that it is not just where people live, but how they live, that matters? We can't just target our safe areas and hope that will be enough. While where someone lived was probably the primary motivation for most voters in this election, it certainly was not the only motivation." Bowers adds in a second post recapping the race, "it is important to remember that the netroots doesn't actually run campaigns -- we just have the ability to offer resources that can give candidates the chance to win. The rest, ultimately, is up to the candidate, the campaign, and the voters. I'm not saying this to throw Ciro under the bus, but rather so that we all get a little more perspective on the role we play online. We are not an alternative party apparatus unto ourselves."

At TNR's The Plank, Jason Zengerle hits the liberal netroots for subscribing to "ideology of winnerism" but in fact losing most, if not all the races they influence: "Which is why it's bizarre that these very same bloggers are always so eager to celebrate moral victories. After Howard Dean went down to defeat, they boasted about how they took a virtual nobody to the precipice of victory. Ditto for Paul Hackett. And the same thing is happening today." Zengerle adds, "more often than not, these liberal bloggers (especially Kos) act like they already have taken over the world -- writing manifestoes, issuing threats, and engaging in all sorts of chest-thumping behavior. But, like I said, their batting average is still a big fat zero." Laura Turner at Liberalism Without Cynicism disagrees with Zengerle's premise: "The blogs took a chance on the underdog Rodriguez. Isn't that the opposite of a blind Democratic 'winnerism'?" Kevin Drum disagrees with Zengerle, as "Rome wasn't built in a day," and also with Turner: "It's easy to take a cheap ideological stand when you know there's no danger of losing in November, so this race doesn't really say anything one way or another about the Kossacks' willingness to risk a loss in order to elect a better candidate." He adds: "In the end, of course, I suspect this is all a bunch of overanalysis."

WHITE HOUSE '08: Everything's Coming Up Hillary

At TappedGreg Sargent reports, on 3/6 Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) "convened a closed-to-the-press meeting of dozens of her top financial supporters at a law firm in Manhattan, and a source of mine who was present in the room" said that as HRC faces no serious '06 SEN opposition, the meeting "seemed like a loud-and-clear sign to these big-money folks that her 2008 aspirations were alive and well." According to the source, HRC pollster Mark Penn said: "She's emerged as the new leader of the Democratic Party ... she polls higher than Bill Clinton among Democrats nationally."

Conservative UCLA prof Stephen Bainbridge quotes Molly Ivins calling for a "progressive movement that can block the nomination of Hillary Clinton or any other candidate who supposedly has 'all the money sewed up.'" That's just fine by him: "After all, self-identified conservatives out number self-identified liberals in this country. ... Throw in her agenda of cutting and running from Iraq and imposing single payer health care ... plus the potty-mouthed secularism of Ivins, the Kosites and the like, and the Democrats will manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of the victory that self-inflicted GOP wounds ought to be serving up."

MIDTERMS: False Alarm

Josh Marshall's latest Talking Points Memo-related project, TPM Muckraker, hears that Rep. Katherine Harris' (R-FL) "top advisers are gathering in Washington to convince her to drop out of the race ... Calls to the offices of her pollster and another outside adviser revealed they were in meetings all afternoon." Harris' spokesperson said via Blackberry: "She is in the race until November." Hotline On Call heard the same: "The talk of Florida today is that the upper echeleon of Rep. Katherine Harris's Senate campaign is imploring her to drop out of the race." After Harris told the AP later that she would not be leaving the race, TPMM snarked: "I guess that Democratic call-in campaign worked."

PATRIOT ACT: Just A Friendly PAT Down

On 3/8, the PATRIOT Act was renewed to little media attention and not much comment in the blogosphere. Volokh Conspiracy's Orrin Kerr explains: "For the last few months, the debate over the Patriot Act has been over really small potatoes. To use a football analogy, the players were battling over inches instead of yards. But then everything associated with the Patriot Act tends to have a larger-than-life political significance. "Dog bites man" isn't a story, but "Patriot Act lets dog bite man" always gets splashed across the front page."

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Atlas Blogged

Today the Blogometer talks to conservative Pamela, author of Atlas Shrugs.

What is your full name?

Pamela aka Atlas

What is your age?

Uh... you're kidding right?

Where did you grow up?

South Shore -- Long Island, heh.

Where do you live now?

New York City and Long Island.

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

I am the former publisher of The New York Observer, I left that working world for the altogether different working world of shaping the future, raising, rearing my girls to be citizens of the world and to make a difference, tough when our culture deifies Lil Kim. I am a stay at home ma. And no, I have never worked in any political campaign or in any political capacity.

When did you start blogging and why?

The short answer, it's the end of the world as we know it. And the complacency and diversionary media's antics post 9/11 border on sedition. I finally started blogging a year ago out of sheer frustration with the lack of veracity -- intellectual honesty -- in the media at this most grave moment is history. The dearth-of-objective-news vacuum was huge and the Blogosphere came to my intellectual rescue and IMHO the rescue of the free world. Posting to Little Green Footballs just wasn't enough. I wanted to do something, Effect change.

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

I wrote an op-ed piece as a rebut to a ridiculous, mendacious article on the presidential election in a small local newspaper and reposted it on Little Green Footballs (to which I owe all my blogging efforts). I subsequently posted it retroactively on my blog. That post was the zygote, the first cell of the birth of my blog. "The Case for War" cut through the left wing propaganda and asked America what hard choices we would make and why.

The media and the all news cable channels continue to abdicate their role as responsible disseminators of information, they avoid the most serious issues of the day, sedating a willing American public into this false sense of security. Their opinion (generally leftist) has replaced the news. There are a great many people in America that have been reeducated to believe that 9/11 was a couple of guys that got lucky. This, in spite of the wild rhetoric, daily terror and acts of war perpetuated by Radical Islam across the world. If anything Bush is a victim of his own success, protecting us as well as he has. And the "FISA" nonsense is the left's attempt to disable Bush's ability to continue to do that and to take him down as well.

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

My blogging schedule is nuts and has taken over my life... any free moment for the blog, I blog. Get up, get outta bed, drag a comb across the kid's head. Head 'em up, move 'em out... hit the newspapers and best news sites, check the emails, start writing. Attend to personal biz... hit the blog, the emails, the news, the tips, everyday is different. I chose my social outings carefully, mostly War on Radical Islam will get my attention. Sometimes I find I have been blogging all night, it's 6 am and so I nod out for a half hour then do the kid thang.

I am so impassioned by it because we are working against a clock, a scary clock. And we have got to get the word to as many people s possible as fast as we can. The world is at war, pretending it to be anything else will be fatal.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

Little Green Footballs. Hands down. When the history books are written, Charles Johnson will surely go down as a great American that made a critical difference between victory and defeat. His role has been largely ignored but so what? Most of the greats are ignored in their time. Van Gogh was ignored in his time too, although I don't think Charles can draw... but you get my meaning. The media wants Charles and the blogs for that matter to just go away. But just the opposite is happening, the blogs are dictating the national dialog. What's on the blogs today, is in the news 3,4 sometimes a week later.

Look, I ran those Mohammed cartoons u back in October. I cut the one with the turban out of The New York Post and scanned it and ran it back then but the MSM ignored it until it was rammed down their throat.

Nonpolitical blogs? You mean there is such a thing? I haven't a clue.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

Thomas Sowell

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

"The Beltway Boys," that Fred Barnes rocks, is such a stud.

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

New York Sun -- best newspaper, hands down, WSJ's Taranto and Political Journal, my Yahoo newspage, Weekly Standard, YNET, Dr. Jack Wheeler's To The Point, Townhall, NRO's The Corner and honestly, I am so all over the map it changes but those are mainstays.

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

Always Little Green Footballs, I check out Glenn, Roger, adore Wretchard's Belmont Club, Malkin (of course), Tom over at Bizzy Blog should have been Greenspan's replacement, CUANAS just started a brilliant little gem -- Infidels Bloggers Alliance, Jihad Watch, No Pasaran, Vital Perspective, there are so many... check my blogroll.

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

I dig the Sun, I can not lie...

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

The MOST SIGNIFICANT shift in the news paradigm is the role that media plays. No longer sufficient in merely bringing us the News, the American public must now choose its disseminator, its sifter, filter, prism and demand thorough and complete journalism but one with a moral compass because a press is prejudicial when they are unable (or unwilling) to distinguish between terrorists and the victims of terror.

I am not one that believes that big media is dead. Much like in marketing when direct mail became the big thang and that it would kill print, or that television would kill cinema, the blogosphere is an "in addition to." A critical piece of the media puzzle, one that will finally make "an honest woman" of the MSM. The MSM can no longer go off half cocked. Back in 2000, whe)n the MSM dropped the DUI bomb on Bush just days before the election, it really hurt him.

In 2004 when the MSM dropped that AWOL bomb on Bush, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs was there to counter with the truth and it absolutely changed the course of the Presidency, and history. So the blogs are necessary. Most necessary and the blogosphere will grow exponetially and replicate the media landscape of Lincoln, crowded , loud, opinionated, electric and diverse. Yes, wildly diverse. We will all co-exist, feed off each other. The difference will be where the American people choose to get their news. The cat is out of the bag. hOOha!

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Funny, No One Mentioned Wikipedia ...

At Right Wing News, John Hawkins writes: "Have you ever wondered whether anyone in Congress actually reads blogs? Well, wonder no more, because that question has now been definitively answered. Below you'll find a list of nine members of Congress and the blogs that they regularly read and/or have their staffs monitor for them."

In the all-GOP group is TX Sen. John Cornyn and righty blog favorite Rep. Mike Pence, and like most who responded, they list a handful of sites. Rep. Jack Kingston -- who, like Pence, maintains an official blog -- lists 16 blogs, Rep. Bob Ney's office lists 33 blogs, including several top liberal sites, a few OH blogs -- and, it bears noting, The Blogometer.

LEST WE FORGET: It Ain't A Piano, It's A Synthesizer!

Well-worth a few minutes of your time at work when you should be doing something else: WuzzaDem doing his trademarked (well, not actually) photo-illustrated celebrity conversations, this time skewering two much-derided recently-in-the-news adult contemporary musicians.