Stale, but if the shoe fits...:
The Great Triangulator Strikes Again
Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that former President Bill Clinton has played an instrumental role in advising top officials from the United Arab Emirates on how to assuage growing US concerns over the Dubai ports deal. Earlier this week, Mr. Clinton called the UAE a “good ally to America,” and offered his recommendation to Dubai leaders that they propose a 45-day delay to allow for an intensive investigation.
This comes as no surprise. After all, Mr. Clinton is no stranger to UAE bigwigs (nor their bank accounts). Not only has the sheikdom contributed to Clinton’s own presidential library, it opened its wallet rather wide on repeated occasions for the "Man from Hope," reportedly paying him over a half million dollars for two speeches he delivered in Dubai in 2002 and 2005.
The plot thickens. As Bob Novak writes in Townhall today, Mr. Clinton was until recently, pushing for his former press secretary and close friend, Joe Lockhart to be hired by the UAE to defend the controversial ports deal. Lockhart was gunning for the big bucks and hoped his former boss could help him land a gig as Washington’s spokesman for the UAE-owned company, Dubai Ports World.
(An interesting aside: According to Novak, “Lockhart did not flatly deny to me that Clinton had made a pitch for him, but instead said he did not know whether the former president was involved.” But according to Novak, “UAE sources, contending that Lockhart priced himself out of the market, asserted there was no question but that Clinton had intervened on his behalf and added it was not possible that Lockhart had not known about his former chief's intervention".)
Hillary, on the other hand, has been blowing her whistle at the head of the anti-Dubai pandering parade. Mrs. Clinton has vociferously positioned herself as a vocal opponent to the ports deal. The junior senator from New York with eyes on the Oval Office prize said on her website, "Our port security is too important to place in the hands of foreign governments.” She is also working on legislation that will prohibit the sale of ports to foreign governments. And at a speech in Manhattan this past weekend, Hillary called the Dubai deal "emblematic of a larger problem" of ceding "some of our fiscal sovereignty."
This is where the infamous Clinton triangulation begins.
As the Financial Times reports, Mr. Clinton’s spokesman has just gone on record saying that the former president supports Hillary’s position against the ports deal. And that “ideally,” state-owned companies would not own US port operations.
What’s that you say?
How does Bill Clinton support Hillary’s crystal-clear position against the Dubai ports deal, while simultaneously offering strategic counsel and advice (and high-priced personnel) to officials from Dubai who want the deal to go through?
This is business as usual for the Clintons. Triangulation 101. When you put Bill and Hillary together, what you’re left with is a frighteningly contradictory and confusing political portrait. Something Salvador Dali might have rendered. And if Bill and Hillary ever get the chance to set up shop at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue again, this is what it’ll be like—over and over again.
No one will understand what they’re really doing and what they’re really saying.
Posted by svarga on Thursday, March 02 @ 14:29:40 EST (40 reads)
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