Who Are the Flip Floppers? And How Safe Are Our Lives? .. And our jobs?

In Dan Froomkin's Washington Post Column http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/03/02/BL2006030200940_5.html?referrer=email&sub=AR, he noted that Frank James of the Chicago Tribune writes, "Perhaps the only good news for the president is that he is in South Asia while the story is breaking. But the first chance reporters have to ask him about this in India, they will. And the fallout from the troublesome video will certainly compete with the image of an engaged president handling the weighty affairs of foreign policy he had hoped to communicate to the audience back home." This on the heels of the Dubai ports fiasco.

It doesn’t sound like good news, actually, since Bush is over there telling the Indian people that Americans need to be ready to compete for jobs with Indians, and that it will be better for American jobs to be shipped overseas. Bush goes on to say that Americans are now being re-trained. Yes, re-trained from engineers to lower paying medical technicians; from accountants to lower paying nursing positions.

Jim Vandenhei writes in the Washington Post that "In Hyderabad, Bush also talked about the outsourcing of American jobs to India. 'People do lose jobs as a result of globalization,' he said. 'And it's painful for those who lose jobs.' He repeated that the United States should reject protectionism, however, and not view India as a threat." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/03/AR2006030300183_2.html?nav=hcmodule

Medical is where it’s at says Bush. That’s because professional jobs are going to lower paid Indian workers, which helps Bush's business partners and financial backers. And the American pay scale continues to spiral down, as does the chance for a middle class income. So, as Bush’s comment about it being good for American jobs to go to India, is that really good news for Bush, as the Trib article states? Or will he also have to answer for that on top of the Dubai port deal? And the Katrina "asleep at the wheel" fiasco? And the Iraq "We’ll be welcomed as liberators" misstatement.

I doubt that Americans will be happy to hear that he said it will be good for our jobs to go overseas to India, especially when there were demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of Indians against America. They don't sound like they're thrilled to have us or our jobs there. Perhaps his trip overseas is not the good news the Trib thinks it is. And perhaps it's one more instance of Bush not understanding the American people anymore, if he ever did.

Americans were not happy that he didn’t listen when he was told that New Orleans was in danger and then went off to his ranch and later to California while New Orleans sank. They aren’t happy that Cheney was able to forego an investigation until the next day on a shooting, when any other individual would have had to take a Breathalyzer on the spot before being cleared of wrongdoing.

And finally, what Americans can not correlate is why Iraq, with far less ties to Al Qaeda (no matter what the Bush administration says) gave the administration reason to go to war, while the United Arab Emirates who actually saw financing for 9/11 as well as ties to the Taliban, is not only not seen by the Bush folks as an enemy, and should not only not be considered with some suspicion, but they wonder why they should now be allowed to run our ports. What financial ties does the Bush family have to the families of the United Arab Emirates, and why is that not being traced a bit closer. It's clear that Secretary Snow, who OK'd the deal, has business ties to the UAE.

Incidentally, it is widely known that our port inspections had been only 2 percent of containers since 9/11. The reason? The business people felt it was too expensive to inspect more than 2 percent, and the administration did not want to disappoint the business community. If we can't trust who's sending good into our ports, and we're not sure about who'd running our ports, then why would we think that a 2 percent inspection of containers will give us any security whatsoever.

Harry Truman used to love to say "The buck stops here." Perhaps this administration is fonder of saying "The buck stops with whomever gets caught with it. Meanwhile, the rest of the bucks go in my constituents' pockets." How safe do we feel now? And who, indeed, are the "flip-floppers"?