Okay, so too many goofs for the Secretary of DHS. Like Reed says, he should go. But every so often when you’re thinking of all of Michael Chertoff’s goofs, you’ve got to remember who George W. Bush really wanted to get the job.

TPM Reader BR from Houston …

Josh,

This is the moment when the mask comes off, the curtain is pulled, and everyone—but especially Bush supporters—gets to see the sad little wizard pulling the strings and relying on his megaphone.

Leave aside the question of whether having our ports controlled by UAE will actually make us less safe—I don’t like it, but I don’t have hard evidence. The larger political point is that Bush has lived and died by the war on terror. He has accused those he believed to be less zealous of, virtually, treason. Etc. etc.

Being a War President, and the War on Terror itself, eclipses everything.

Except when it doesn’t.

The people who voted for him genuinely believed that he would keep them safer than any alternative we could elect. And now he’s blowing it all off, under the guise of “fair play” for countries that have “played by the rules.” Aside from the cribbing from Clinton, just which rules is it he thinks the UAE has played by?

The cynicism of his defense of the port deal is just staggering. He’s not even interested in pretending he didn’t know, or hadn’t considered the psychological ramifications, etc. Not even a nod to “maybe we should review this one more time.”

Could be it’s money—there is clearly some conflict of interesting running around the Treasury Dept.

But maybe they just don’t care. It’s all been a show, from day one. Or, I should say, Day 911.

I hope this knocks some sense into Republican heads. From what I heard on Sean Hannity today, perhaps it has.

I’m still interested in finding out a bit more about just what this deal would leave the UAE company in charge of. But what stands out about the president’s talk tough statement today is that it really does amount to — “The fact we’re doing this means that we’ve looked into it and it’s fine. So what’s your problem?”

Here’s an actual quote: “They ought to listen to what I have to say about this. 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 … they need to know that our government has looked at this issue and looked at it carefully. Again, I repeat, if there was any question as to whether or not this country would be less safe as a result of the transaction, it wouldn’t go forward.”

In the most generous reading, it’s like he’s insulted when we don’t take his word for it that he’s got us covered.

So did Jack Abramoff arrange that 1999 trip that Rep. Don Young (R-AK) led to the Marshall Islands or not?

Last week, we told you about a Congressional Delegation (or “CODEL”) Jack Abramoff organized to the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) in February of 1999. The trip was led by Rep. Don Young (R-AK). After our story was picked up in the Anchorage Daily News, Young’s spokesman told the paper in no uncertain terms that Abramoff wasn’t involved in planning the trip.

But our source in the Marshalls, Tony de Brum, has a very different recollection of what happened.

According to de Brum, who was the Marshall Islands Minister of Finance in 1999 and worked with Abramoff while Abramoff was representing the Islands, not only did Abramoff offer to arrange the congressional visit, he also sent over two of his associates from his then-law firm of Preston Gates prior to the trip to make sure everything went smoothly.

De Brum told us that Shawn Vasell and another Abramoff associate actually did the ‘advance’ work for the trip, “to work with us on preparing for the trip and making sure that the Congress people heard what they wanted to hear, and coordinate with the military on Kwajalein.”

Vasell did not return our call seeking comment.

Yesterday, we again asked Don Young’s office for comment. Young spokesperson Meredith Kenny reiterated that “Abramoff did not plan the CODEL,” and went on to explain that “CODEL’s are planned and executed as official government travel in strict compliance with the law.” She added that “Mr. Young has no personal or professional relationship with Mr. Abramoff.”

According to de Brum’s account and the court papers later filed by Preston Gates, the folks from the Marshall Islands needed help making their claims before the US government. They heard that Jack Abramoff was the guy to go to. When de Brum and his colleagues met with Abramoff, he suggested and offered to arrange for members of Congress to visit the Marshall Islands. Less than two months after they signed a contract with Abramoff, the congressmen touched down on Marshallese territory.

They hired Abramoff to arrange it. Abramoff made it happen. And his staffers even came out to the Islands to make sure everything came off as planned.

If Young didn’t know that Abramoff was the guy who made the trip happen, he seemed to be the only one not in the loop.

Isn’t offshoring port management and security sort of like offshoring the shore?

Watch out for that falling shoe: White House says Bush didn’t know about Dubai ports deal until after it was approved. “He became aware of it over the last several days,” says Scott McClellan.

Is this Administration willing to break the law to get this Dubai port deal through?

The NY Times reported today that the law governing this sort of deal, when “the acquiring company is controlled by or acting on behalf of a foreign government,” requires a “mandatory,” 45-day investigation. That was never done, and what’s more, “Administration officials … could not say why a 45-day investigation did not occur.”

But here’s the thing: it’s not too late. The President can still order the investigation. And Sens. Schumer (D-NY) and Clinton (D-NY), along with Mayor Bloomberg, have asked for it.

So now it seems that the UAE folks have signed on Bob Dole to help them ride out the port storm, or find a port in the port storm, or something like that. But until today, who was the lobbying arm of the UAE in the United States? Who worked the press on their behalf?

I rung up the Foreign Agents Registration Unit at the Justice Department. And as of the last required filing (covering the first half of last year), there were four firms lobbying on behalf of the UAE and state-controlled UAE entities.

Hunton & Williams for the Ministry of Finance and Industry of the UAE; Global USA, Inc. for the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates; Clark & Weinstock for the plain old United Arab Emirates; and Patton Boggs for UAE.

The one of those deals which seemed most tied to working Congress, the executive branch and media circles in DC is the Clark & Weinstock contract. They bill themselves as specializing in “reputation and crisis management.”

We pulled the agreement and it’s set forth in a January 18th, 2005 letter which former Rep. and W&C’s DC Managing Partner Vin Weber (R) wrote to the UAE ambassador. The above excerpt details the two main goals of their representation of the UAE as outlined in their contract.

We called Clark & Weinstock’s New York office to see if they’re still working the UAE PR and lobbying account. But they didn’t return our call.

AP: White House Had Secret Agreement With UAE Co.

Earlier this evening I took this Matt Yglesias post and made it the featured post at TPMCafe.

It’s about Larry Summers’ resignation at Harvard and specifically the Washington Post’s fatuous column decrying his departure.

I went to two of what the Post editorial calls “elite coastal campuses.” And I spent the better part of my twenties at Brown, a very liberal college campus in what is probably the most Democratic state in the country. Nobody needs to tell me about campus liberalism with its foibles and insularities or its frothiness and escapism.

Believe me, I’ve seen it.

But there’s just nothing more precious than seeing the faux-populist poseur Post editorial writers standing tough against an entrenched “establishment” of thirty-something, tenure-desperate semioticians and lit geeks in defense of “mainstream American values”, a well of mores and beliefs with which the Post is no doubt deeply in touch. (Peel away the Fred Hiatt mask and underneath it’s Bruce Springsteen; cut a little deeper and he’s an Iowa farmer.) This is especially so when, as Matt, with a light touch, points out, they seem to know little about what actually happened beyond what you could crib from a studious reading of the 2005 edition of the Collected Transcripts of the O’Reilly Factor.

In their ability to be so completely out of touch with who they are, the Posties have finally accomplished what so many campus lefties struggled so long in vain to do: give real meaning to the phrase ‘false consciousness’.

You asked for it. And here it is: our new Grand Old Docket, Ohio Sub-Docket.