Abramoff's Media Pal

He also picks on liberals: When Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general, turned up as Saddam Hussein's lawyer, Cafferty said: "What is wrong with this moron? . . . Why doesn't he just go live in Baghdad?"

Cafferty, 62, who invites viewer e-mail that he reads on the air, seems adept at pushing buttons. When he accused the administration of "arrogance" last week for approving a Dubai company to operate six U.S. ports, he got more than 5,000 letters in three hours.

"It doesn't matter what you say," he insists, "you're going to [tick] someone off."

(Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources.")

In other news, Ron Brownstein sees a certain poetic justice in the port debate:

"President Bush may not like the arguments that critics are raising against the Dubai company attempting to take over cargo and cruise operations at ports in six U.S. cities. But he should recognize them. The arguments marshaled against Bush closely echoed the ones he deployed to defend the Iraq war. "The president, in other words, is stewing in a pot he brought to boil."

Citing Iraq, Quailgate and Portgate, Time's Joe Klein says, "The response of President Bush to all this has been surreal. Public support for his policies is dwindling; his own party is abandoning him; he seems naked, defenseless in the public square. Yet he has spent most of the past few weeks traveling the country, selling the vaporous "policies" he proposed in his State of the Union address.

As conservatives warm to the Dubai port deal, they seem particularly annoyed at former impeachment manager Lindsey Graham, as we see in this Rich Lowry piece in National Review:

"Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, styles himself an independent voice unafraid to speak truth to power. Judging by his performance in the controversy over a company that is owned by the United Arab Emirates potentially managing terminals at six U.S. ports, Graham is also unafraid to speak falsehood to power. He doubts whether we should 'outsource major port security to a foreign-based company.'. . . .

"Graham, unfortunately, isn't alone. He is part of a bipartisan herd hoping to win the War on Terror through ill-informed hysteria.

"Did some of the 9/11 hijackers come from the UAE, and did the hijackers launder money through that country? Yes, but Britain also has produced terrorists, and the UAE has worked to tighten its financial system. It is arguably our most useful Arab ally, providing an air base and ports crucial to military operations in the Middle East.

"The UAE is a kind of Arab model. It is pursuing commercial openness, attempting to orient itself more toward the West. Blackballing the Dubai firm would turn our backs on the UAE's progress."