Port Story Was Great Opportunity for Learning

RUSH: John Warner announced on the floor of the Senate today that he’d gotten a letter or note from the Grand Pooh-Bah of the United Arab Emirates. Apparently the sheik over there has advised DPW, Dubai Port World, ‘Just get out of it. Just get out of it.’ What Warner wants to do is set up a way they can sell the US part of the deal that they’re buying from the Brits and to a separate entity. Now the phrase ‘American entity’ is not actually included but that’s of course what everybody is hoping what entity that is, but apparently there’s some action being taken by Republicans in the Senate to see to it that DPW is not harmed financially by this.

We don’t want to make enemies over all of this. House Republicans may not be interested in this deal. They want to kill this, and they may not care if, you know, ‘Okay, it’s up to the Brits to find somebody else to buy these ports.’ Well, DPW has already bought them. That’s the thing. So, at any rate, the port deal is essentially over. It has been killed. It’s dead. The House Republicans did it to the chagrin of Democrats in the Senate. They thought they were the face of things. They thought they were the ones that should get the credit for it, which was what this was all about in the first place which was who could be the first to say, ‘I killed the port deal. I did it! I did it! Look at me. Notice me! I killed the port deal,’ because there was such an outcry out there. So the Republicans in the House did an end run around it Democrats and the Democrats are now… (Laughing).

You know what’s funny to me about this? There’s a lot about this that’s funny, I must tell you. I know a lot of you have been tired of the port deal. I love the port deal story. I think there’s so much wrapped up in the port deal story. I’ve had more fun with the port deal story, learning about it. It’s one of my proudest moments as host of this show. I may be on the wrong side of the deal. Well, we won’t know now. I could have been wrong about it, but this is one of my shining career moments, is this port deal. You don’t know how I feel. You’ve got a mad tsunami of hysteria out there — not based on any thought — and I dared to look into it and said, ‘Ah, it’s not so bad. We can live with this. This is pretty good.’ I enjoy these moments, and they don’t happen by design. They happen by fate and circumstance.

Even the name of it, ‘the port deal,’ is so wrong. It’s not about ‘ports.’ It’s about ‘terminals.’ The port deal! You can describe it this way. This is the best way to describe it. Peggy Noonan has a column, and let me find it. Peggy Noonan has a column today in the Wall Street Journal about the Oscars, and she has a paragraph in this piece that I want to read to you about George Clooney, because Peggy here is making a point that I have been trying to make recently about the media and how everybody gets caught up in the media and whatever the media says becomes what people’s lives are. She chose to write about it this way: ‘The Clooney generation in Hollywood is not writing and directing movies about life as if they’ve experienced it, with all its mysteries and complexity and variety. In an odd way they haven’t experienced life; they’ve experienced media.

‘Their films seem more an elaboration and meditation on media than an elaboration and meditation on life. This is how he could take such an unnuanced, unsophisticated, unknowing gloss on the 1950s and the McCarthy era. He just absorbed media about it. And that media itself came from certain assumptions and understandings, and myths. Most Americans aren’t leading media, they’re leading lives. It would be nice to see a new respect in Hollywood for the lives they live. It would be nice to see them start to understand that rediscovering the work of, say, C.S. Lewis, and making a Narnia film, is not ‘giving in’ to the audience but serving it. It isn’t bad to look for and present good material that is known to have a following. It’s a smart thing to do. It’s why David O. Selznick bought ‘Gone With the Wind’: People were reading it. It was his decision to make it into a movie from which he would profit that gave Hattie McDaniel her great role. Taboos are broken by markets, not poses.’

Well, there are a couple of great lines in here. ‘Most Americans aren’t leading media, they’re leading lives,’ and it would be nice to see a new respect in Hollywood for the lives that they live rather than taunting. Forget stuff about Hollywood here. The fact is, this port deal was a drive-by shooting. It was a media drive-by shooting. They came in there, and they hailed and lobbed a bunch of mortars, grenades, started firing bullets and everybody went running for cover — and they’ve made a huge mess out of things, and nobody knows what happened but it’s governed everybody’s lives or that’s been involved in this for the period of time we’ve been in it.

One of the things I’m happy about is that the drive-by missed me. I didn’t get caught up in it. The last thing I did was say, ‘Dubai? Port deal? Screw that! Hell no! Arabs? Terrorists? Turbans? Not me! No way!’ But everybody else was doing that. There was some reasoned opposition. The Democrats are the ones. They were the ones that were just saying it. Oh, we’ve blown an opportunity to expose these people again as the frauds and the phonies that they are, but that opportunity will present itself numerous times between now and the next election, because it’s the way they live. So yes, my friends, I’m going to miss the port deal, as a Stack issue. I am! I’m trying hard not to let it go now, but I have to. It’s been a great story. It was a great opportunity for learning and education.

We got to do a little bit of that here in the two weeks we in earnest spent on the port deal. You people in this audience are more informed than I’d say 80% of the members in Congress that voted on this or will vote on this about what this deal actually was and what it wasn’t. It was all because you, too, avoided the tsunami. You avoided the media drive-by, and you are living your life, not ‘living media.’ A quick time-out as we move on. I have other news. Oh, one other story here. I’d better do this while I’m on the subject here. This is from the New York Sun today. ‘The State Department yesterday stressed the importance of plans to station at least 10 diplomats in Dubai to monitor the Tehran regime,’ that’s Iran, for those of you in Rio Linda, ‘and support Iran’s pro-democracy movement. The move was intended to assure a restive Congress of the Bush administration’s commitment to containing the Iranian nuclear threat.

‘The siting of the monitors in Dubai reemphasized that the president and the State Department believe the United Arab Emirates is a strong American ally in the war on terror at a time when the Dubai government is facing hostility from lawmakers over [the port deal]. The Dubai monitors, and the setting up of American radio and television stations beaming into Iran, would address ‘a serious divergence between our capabilities and the profound challenges before us concerning Iran,’ [said] the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns…’ The bottom line is this, ladies and gentlemen: We are going to send ten new diplomats to Dubai.

We’re going to set up apparently what sounds like versions of Radio Free Europe and TV Free Europe and we’re going to beam these signals into Iran to try to let the freedom fighters and freedom lovers there know that we support them. Dubai, a willing partner, has just allowed the news to be made that these broadcast facilities will be in their country. This is not going to please old Mahmoud, that wacko lunatic president of Iran. It’s not going to make him happy at all. So here’s the UAE going out, branching out with us in this war that we’re having, this dispute, with the Iranians — and the story also mentioned that 345 lawmakers are in favor of using Dubai in this manner. I just thought that I would… Three-hundred-forty-five lawmakers have already indicated an excitement to support this legislation and this program, and so I just thought that you should know that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: All right, here’s what John Warner said. He was on the floor of the Senate this afternoon. He announced the DPW, Dubai Ports World, move because he was contacted by the chief operating officer of DP World, a man by the name of Edward ‘Mohammed’ Bilkey. I’m just kidding. There’s no Mohammed in it. Here’s Warner.

SENATOR WARNER: I’ve just been contacted by Edward Bilkey, chief operating officer of DP World, and in an effort to get this message to all interested parties as quickly as possible I indicated a willingness to read a press release that is now being issued by DP World and Edward Bilkey. It reads as follows: ‘Because of the strong relationship between the United Arab Emirates and the United States and to preserve that relationship, DP World has decided to transfer fully the US operation of P&O Ports North America to a United States entity. This decision is based on an understanding that DP World will have time to effect the transfer in an orderly fashion and that DP World will not suffer economic loss. We look forward to working with the Department of Treasury to implement the decision, end statement. His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, prime minister of UAE, has advised the company that in the interests of the UAE, the nation and the United States that this action is the appropriate course to take in the future.’

RUSH: Okay. So he actually read the statement that the CEO sent him, and they called over at DP World — they called over at Dubai place — got anything to add? ‘Nope. The senator read our statement. That’s all we have to say right now. We have nothing else to add.’ So we’ll see where this goes. This whole thing, folks, there’s a way to describe this. There is a word to describe this. It’s just been a disgrace. This whole thing has been a disgrace. It has been an embarrassing thing as an American, for me to watch the way all this has transpired. Anyway, Holly in Los Angeles, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. Thank you for taking my call.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: It’s just occurring to me, two things. I’m wondering what your thoughts are on what the ramifications are going to be beyond Dubai, and the other Arab countries.

RUSH: I don’t care, because now the Democrats are worried. They’re on the board. Chuck Schumer cares about national security, so I feel safe now.

CALLER: (chuckles)

RUSH: Whatever the UAE does to retaliate, I am not concerned.

CALLER: Well, it’s just going to cause more American hatred, and also how does Bush salvage relationships with them, with Dubai — I mean, with the UAE?

RUSH: Bush won’t have any problem salvaging relationships. Bush is the one guy that tried this. Bush and Clinton. Clinton’s got the big problem. Clinton’s the guy that greased this and wasn’t able to make it happen. Clinton is the guy. He did. He did. I don’t think Bush is going to be a problem with it, but that’s not Bush. What’s Bush going to do to heal this rift with the Republicans? I’m telling you something: Bush is going to be needed for these elections coming up this year. Bush is still the biggest fund-raiser these clowns in Congress have and they’re going to be there. You watch. They’re going to be knocking on the door and they’re going to be asking to fly on Air Force One with him when he goes back to their state and they’re going to be asking him to do fund-raisers for them, and they’re going to have to put this rift back together politically because Bush still has two years of his presidency after this election, two-and-a-half years, and I guarantee you he still has an agenda and he wants a Republican Congress — although it hasn’t been doing him much good lately, he certainly doesn’t want the House led by Nancy Pelosi after next November. Jennifer in Mesa, Arizona, hi. Welcome to the program.

CALLER: Hi, Rush, it’s great to talk to you. What I wanted to say is that I think that the next time anybody attributes to you the ability to exert monolithic control over the will of the United States and, you know, to get people to follow along with you as mind-numbed robots they should look at this example because you’ve been gung-ho and a hundred percent for this from the very beginning and you had no power to stop this.

RUSH: Nope, that’s true.

CALLER: You’ve often said that the people of this country get exactly what they want.

RUSH: They do.

CALLER: Regardless of you, obviously.

RUSH: When they make themselves heard, the people of this country get what they want, nine out of ten times — seven out of ten times. That’s why our system works. You don’t always win elections, sometimes you don’t get what you want, but when you make yourselves heard, as happened in this case with members of Congress… But, you know, the mind-numbed robot allegation about you, the audience, and the pied piper allegation about me, that has been made from the get-go and it will continue to be made. Remember: when I become a news story there’s an action line for me being in the news, and it’s never going to change. Accuracy and me, in terms of how I’m reported on, is never, ever going to happen. I stopped caring about that a long time ago. But I didn’t weigh in at the very beginning of this. You know, I didn’t have a fair playing field out there.

When I started weighing in on this, 80% of the people had their minds made up, and my task — if you were looking at it in the context of your call, Jennifer, my task — was to go out there and change the minds of 80% of the American people. That’s a real challenge. That’s not feasible and possible on an emotional issue like this. I wasn’t emotional. They were. Everybody was emotional. I don’t argue emotion. I really don’t, not on a deal like this, and so I think obviously it got dicey for the Republicans in Congress because Peter King was out there ripping me, blaming me for some of the lack of enthusiasm to oppose the deal. Apparently there was enough persuasion going on from behind this (tap), the Golden EIB Microphone, that it alarmed Peter King and he had to go all over television to counter the effects of me and this program. I didn’t go all over television. I went home and lived my life when this program was over. Here’s Bob in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Bob, welcome to the program.

CALLER: Well, hey, thanks for having me.

RUSH: You bet!

CALLER: I’ll tell you what. I came through my door wall this morning, after a brief shopping spree and I was watching C-SPAN and you made reference to somebody had made, and Congressman David Obey was on there.

RUSH: Yes.

CALLER: And he made the comment, ‘Most of us in the House have not heard or hadn’t heard that the Chinese communists – had taken a port over in California.’ It’s like, I hit myself with the palm of my hand and the middle of my forehead, and I said, ‘Where were you years ago? What is going on?’ I heard it. It was on all the cable networks. It was on the networks. Where are you people?

RUSH: Well, that’s what Obey said. We haven’t actually done a poll to find out how many members of Congress don’t know that the ChiComs have extensive holdings on our left coast ports.

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: If Obey is out there saying he didn’t know it —

CALLER: He didn’t know it!

RUSH: — then Obey’s mental mapping may be off. His human geography may be failing here it may just be the result of bias, but still, he said it. It’s an anecdotal story but I will tell you this: I wouldn’t be surprised. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a significant number of members of Congress who do not know, not only that it’s the ChiComs who own extensive port operations, terminal operations on the left coast, that they own both the Pacific and Atlantic entrances to the Panama Canal. I don’t know how many people know that. One thing I’m not going to do is rehash all this because it’s a done deal. Dubai ports is pulling up stakes, pulling up anchor, going to sail the seven seas, heading out somewhere else so we’ve got to find a new entity here to make the ports better and secure — except they’re the best in the world at it. I don’t know what we’re going to do.

END TRANSCRIPT

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