March 2, 2006
The Clintons on Dubai
By Robert
Novak
WASHINGTON -- While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was ripping President
Bush's handling of American ports management, Bill Clinton was
pushing for one of his favorite White House aides to be hired
to defend the deal. The former president proposed to the United
Arab Emirates (UAE) his onetime press secretary, Joe Lockhart,
as Washington spokesman for the UAE-owned company, Dubai Ports
World.
The Lockhart
deal was never consummated. But the spectacle of the two Clintons
going in opposite directions on the UAE port-management question
exposed a Democratic fault line. Widespread public reaction against
outsourcing control of the ports was seen by Sen. Clinton and
other prominent Democrats as a chance to outflank the Republicans
on homeland security in this year's elections. Behind the scenes,
however, Democrats aligned with the Clinton family were lobbying
for the UAE.
The lineup
over the DP World raises questions about how Bill Clinton's free
and easy political manner will impact his wife's prospective presidential
campaign for 2008. Highly disciplined Hillary Clinton plays politics
by the numbers, following a carefully plotted strategy. Her husband's
freewheeling, intuitive style was typified when he tried to secure
a well-paid assignment for his friend and valued aide, Joe Lockhart,
who now heads a Washington-based media firm.
According
to well-placed UAE sources, the former president made the suggestion
at the very highest level of the oil-rich state. The relationship
between him and the UAE is far from casual. The sheikdom has contributed
to the Clinton Presidential Library, and brought Clinton to Dubai
in 2002 and 2005 for highly paid speeches (reportedly at $300,000
apiece). He was there in 2003 to announce a scholarship program
for American students traveling to Dubai.
Certainly,
the emirs would pay the closest attention to any request from
the former president. Lockhart did confer with DP World officials,
but they failed to reach agreement. The UAE sources said that
Lockhart's asking price was much too high.
Lockhart
did not flatly deny to me that Clinton had made a pitch for him,
but instead said he did not know whether the former president
was involved. Lockhart said he was recommended by another Clintonite:
Carol Browner, the former Environmental Protection Agency chief
and now a principal in the Albright Group lobbying firm. Headed
by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the company is
representing DP World. Lockhart told me "money was not the
problem" as he turned down the offer.
UAE sources,
contending that Lockhart priced himself out of the market, asserted
there was no question but that Clinton had intervened on his behalf
and added it was not possible that Lockhart had not known about
his former chief's intervention. When I sought comment from Clinton,
his press spokesman, Jay Carson, said: "I don't know for
sure, but I don't know him to generate employment even for someone
he likes and admires as much as Joe Lockhart."
While Lockhart
may have been a bridge too far for DP World, the UAE has reached
out to high-priced Washington lobbyists on both sides of the aisle
(including Republicans Bob Dole and Vin Weber). Leading the way
in putting together the port deal was Jonathan Winer, a leading
Democratic lobbyist who spent 10 years as Sen. John Kerry's aide.
Winer's associate at the Alston & Bird law firm supporting
DP World is Kathryn Marks, who was policy director for then Sen.
John Edwards. Former Democratic Rep. Tom Downey, chairman of his
own lobbying firm, is also on the Dubai team.
In contrast
to Democratic operatives working behind closed doors are Democratic
lawmakers attacking the ports deal in the open. Speaking to the
Jewish Community Relations Council at Manhattan's 92nd Street
YMCA on Sunday, Sen. Clinton went beyond questions of homeland
security. She called the Dubai deal "emblematic of a larger
problem" of ceding "some of our fiscal sovereignty."
Does that
put the Clintons on a collision course? Not exactly. Having failed
privately to hook up Lockhart with DP World, the former president
publicly turned on his old friends from the UAE last Friday in
a speech at Auckland, New Zealand. DP World, he said, "is
from UAE, where some of the money from 9/11 was laundered."
If Democrats in general are divided publicly and privately on
this issue, so is Bill Clinton as an individual.
Copyright
2006 Creators Syndicate
