Okay, the "giving control of six US major city ports to a company owned by a nation with a history of financing Al Qaeda" thing

You may have heard about this. If not, firedoglake can tell you about it. In short, all you need to know is that basically: No one thinks it's a good idea. Except, of course, the Bush administration.

And why does the Bush administration think it's a good idea? I'll give you two guesses. One word. Rhymes with "phonies."

The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.

Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and who was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

Bush reportedly thinks it's such a good idea that he is threatening to veto any bill Congress might approve to block the agreement.

What distresses me most is learning that David Sanborn is involved. Oh, David, isn't being a jazz saxophone legend and smooth jazz music artist enough?