President Bush: 'I Have No Idea What Goes On In My Own Administration'

The President is feeling the heat on the port deal and this is him distancing himself...

AP: Bush Didn't Know About Ports Deal

President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.

Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction, which has triggered a major political backlash among both Republicans and Democrats...

This, this, is his defense? That he is so clueless about the goings-on of his own administration that he was unaware that such a major deal was being worked on until it had already been approved? Once again, when the President comes under fire (for 9/11, for Iraq, for Katrina, for torture, etc), he passes the buck and claims ignorance on everything. Harry Truman he's not.

Yesterday, so sure was he of the importance of this deal, that he came out swinging to defend his good name and threatening vetos against any action Congress might dare to pass. Today... he's just some fucking idiot who had no idea the deal had even been made until he read about it in a memo. Call it the Donald Rumsfeld defense. I believe neither's accounts. It is presposterous that the President would have so adamantly defending a deal he wasn't aware of.

Is anyone buying this?

What's next? Bush will insist he got 'faulty intelligence' about the deal?

President Bush apparently realized he had to choose between being the guy who personally approved this universally controversial deal, or the guy who just stumbles around the White House while everyone else pulls the strings of power. Oddly, he seems to have chosen the latter. Of course, the cluelessness and incompetence of the President has never bothered his key supporters, so maybe he is correct in assuming it's preferable to the Executive arrogance he presented yesterday. I suppose Karl Rove made the call that incompetence will sell better than a direct bad decision.

As Jack Cafferty said yesterday, I would like to believe this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Should this not finally convince Bush's remaining supporters that, not only can he not be trusted on national security, but that he doesn't even seem to want to be bothered with the basic duties of his office (except when he needs unprecedented executive powers to go around existing laws)? If not, what could possibly be the breaking point?

Would there ever be one?

And, finally, as pointed out by Digby and others, this super-secretive, national security President appears to have more trust in the United Arab Emirates government than he does in the United States Congress or the FISA court. He has made clear that there is no law, whether new or old, that will stop him doing what he wants in the name of the 'war'. And he will involve Congress and the Courts in the decisions and debates only when he sees fit to do so. In defending our freedoms, the President has declared himself the right to curtail many freedoms along the way. And yet now, when faced with bipartisan anger over this port deal, he says that WE are overreacting. How anyone can defend this man has long been beyond me.

Nothing this man says, or does, can be trusted. What has he done to make me believe otherwise?

Sorry your majesty, even you can't talk your way out of this mess.