BUSH: "I know a prairie fire when I see one!"

[Bluebear]

(How, pray tell, El Pretzeldente? Did some of your "brush" catch fire while you were "clearing" it at your "ranch"? Did they have prairie fires at school in Massachusetts or Connecticut? At your family digs in Maine?)

=====

New York, Mar 13: The pulling out of an Arab company from the controversial US ports deal might have saved President George Bush from a confrontation with his Republican Party colleagues in the Congress but it may also mark the moment he turned a "lame duck", according to a media report.

"The company was okayed by the administration to run several US ports but the deal came under severe attack. The most politically injurious fallout could be new constraints on Bush's ability to play what had been his strong card-his national-security credentials," the Time Magazine said.

The magazine quoted White House officials as saying that Bush quickly realised the Dubai Ports affair was a fiasco. "I know a prairie fire when I see one," Bush told an aide. The withdrawal by the company enabled President Bush to escape a fight with Republican-controlled Congress that had the public overwhelming on its side, the report said....

Just 16 months after the President's re-election, time said his Capitol Hill allies are in a "funk," pointing fingers and worrying about their survival in November's midterm elections. Even Bush loyalists fear the commander in chief is in a "hole with no ladder", it adds. In an acknowledgment that he needs to offer a more convincing message on Iraq, time said the President is scheduled to deliver a series of three speeches this month that aim at persuasion, a departure from his usual hallmark of repetition.


http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=281418&sid=WOR