{"id":6682,"date":"2006-02-22T12:20:37","date_gmt":"2006-02-22T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6682"},"modified":"2006-02-22T12:20:37","modified_gmt":"2006-02-22T17:20:37","slug":"slowly-backing-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/slowly-backing-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Slowly backing away"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Bush seemed fairly annoyed that members of Congress would question the UAE port deal. In responding to questions from reporters, the president was aggressive and unyielding. “They ought to listen to what I have to say about this,” Bush said<\/a>. “They ought to look at the facts, and understand the consequences of what they’re going to do. But if they pass a law, I’ll deal with it, with a veto.”<\/p>\n

It may have been subtle, but today Bush seemed a little less assertive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The transaction should go forward, in my judgment…. I can understand why some in Congress have raised questions about whether or not our country will be less secure as a result of this transaction. But they need to know that our government has looked at this issue and looked at it carefully.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s almost a good cop\/bad cop routine with the same guy. Yesterday, forceful Bush said lawmakers better listen to him, or else. Today, modest Bush “understands” questions, and believes the deal is worthwhile, “in his judgment.”<\/p>\n

For that matter, the White House did a little more backpedaling<\/a> this morning.<\/p>\n

President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction, which has triggered a major political backlash among both Republicans and Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I were laying odds, I’d say the chances are pretty good that the White House will approve of a congressional hearing or two before the week is out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Bush seemed fairly annoyed that members of Congress would question the UAE port deal. In responding to questions from reporters, the president was aggressive and unyielding. “They ought to listen to what I have to say about this,” Bush said. “They ought to look at the facts, and understand the consequences of what they’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}