Dubai Ports World: The Lost Savior of American Security

Well, it would have been, according to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff (in a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations yesterday).

How you react to this bit of news I expect will depend on whether you believe Chertoff, and he doesn't have the highest level of credibility these days. But what he says certainly sounds reasonable to me; a large, international, professional organization would do a better job (and be more responsive) than some unspecified, cobbled-together "American entity."

One must wonder, of course, why Chertoff and other Adminstration officials weren't out in public making this point during the hoo-hah. Presumably, they didn't do that because they expected that the American public (as nimble-minded and aware of subtlety as always) wouldn't even understand the argument, let alone agree with it.

And once again I realize that the only good thing about democracy is that it's better than every other political system humans have devised. But that's thin comfort.