I watched most of the Sunday talking head shows yesterday, and for the ones I missed I read the reports by my stalwart blogmates. Notable by it's absence was any mention of administration officials' financial connections to the Carlyle Group, CSX, Dubai Ports World and the UAE. Even though venerable CNN host Lou Dobbs had thoroughly reported on this last week on his show [see my previous post].

I even watched the Wall Street Journal report with Maria Bartiromo [Rowr! Ciao Bella!] hoping the issue might be raised. No such luck. But during a segment where a writer from the WSJ editorial page and the WSJ's managing editor proceeded to beat Rep. King about the head over his opposition to the port deal, an intriguing question came up: why would Bush come out and threaten to veto any legislation blocking the deal before the discussion had even really started? The WSJ people were practically tearing their hair out in disbelief. Why would Bush take such a strong stand on something that is, politically, a big fat loser?

Why indeed. Another thing you can't talk about on TV is the motives of administration officials. Why would John Snow tell reporters he had no idea that Dubai Ports World had bought the shipping operations of the company (CSX) he had headed for 20 years for $1.15 billion? Maybe he was too busy to notice since he was nominated to be Treasury Secretary at almost exactly the same time. And of course this would have no connection to the fact that Snow's Treasury Department approved Dubai Ports World's recent bid to buy operations at six US ports.

Nothing fishy here, right? As compared to, say, Whitewater? No need for the Press or the Government to investigate the financial dealings of people in the White House. We should all just respect the office of the President.

The Print Media is also silent on the issue. With the exception of a column by David Lazarus in the San Francisco Chronicle which politely points out that there might be, ahem, a slight appearance of impropriety.

Even though Randi Rhodes and Al Franken have covered this on Air America Radio, I haven't seen a whole lot on the blogs. Anacher Forester at dKos brings another arch-villain into the picture and points to the "tip of the BakerBerg". Raymond J. Learsy at HuffPo, mentions that the Carlyle Group "has a significant stake in Pacific and Oriental Steamship Navigation Company (P&O)" the UK firm that Dubai Ports world intends to buy out. [UPDATE: Learsy's cites a "report on C-SPAN" but it might have been just a caller to the show.]

The pattern that emerges is something like the Duke Cunningham bribery shenanigans on a much larger scale where entities interested in gaining political influence buy assets controlled by politicians for significantly more than they're worth. The politicians get to "keep the change", as it were. Or maybe it's more like the scams in the "Funky Finger Productions" skits on In Living Color: "Mo' Money, Mo' Money, Mo' Money!"

While the Dems and the Corporate Media chase after the White House's flurry of fake-ass talking points about PortGate (see talk show reports linked above), the giant piggy bank in the middle of the room goes unnnoticed.