(Jack) Carter: UAE deal "tertiary" to general GOP neglect of port security [View All]

Feb. 23, 2006

Following up on the Daily Glean, we shot an e-mail to Jack Carter under the subject line, "port deal--for or against" and it went like this: "Your father appears to be the only person openly supporting Bush on this ports deal, and Ensign opposes it, which raises the question, what's your position?"

Carter's e-mailed response:

"It is through our ports that nuclear or chemical weapons of mass destruction are likely to enter. Therefore, port security is one of the key provisions of any real homeland security package. Such a program should insure inspection of ships and containers that enter a port -- only about 5% are currently checked. A second consideration is verifying the identity of the employees, drivers, and other persons with access to our ports. The Bush administration has done virtually nothing on either of these matters. My opponent has supported their lack of effort.

"Apparently, the tax cut for the wealthy that has become its hallmark has made it difficult to cut enough from our poor, our veterans, and our elderly to fund real homeland security efforts at our ports. As a result, today's news -- the foreign operation of our ports -- has served to focus attention on the far more grievous omissions of security involving the lack of inspection or verification of the ports users. It provides a political opportunity for my opponent to be, for once, against his administration on this tertiary issue. Meanwhile, he continues to provide support for the major failures of this administration's port security (non-)policy."

Though he might get hammered for saying so, Carter is right -- the UAE deal is secondary -- maybe even "tertiary" -- to the larger issue of Bush's neglect of port security. Though they've tried, Kerry and other Democrats have never been able to make the security issue connect with voters. Now they're trying to capitalize on, as Carter put it, "today's news."

more...

http://www.lasvegasgleaner.com/las_vegas_gleaner/2006/02/carter_uae_deal.html