Whatever people were thinking in November 2004, there's beginning to look like some new hope we might actually learn something interesting.

Something interesting about how we think about our government.

The dilemma here is bigger and more useful than a Scooter Libby scandal would ever be. Just as the President stood before a door in China he suddenly discovered was not going to open, now he stands in an American doorway of sorts that he will discover there is just no way of closing. He's going to need that sense of humor about himself again.

The thing to understand here is that this is not one of those kinds of questions that needs any definitive answer anytime soon. The more the country dwells on it the better it is for the country. It gets a little boring not having an answer after awhile but I daresay I think it will not have a definitive answer. It can only go away slowly. This thing here is not a bottle which contains a piece of a puzzle. It is the bottle opener.

It will continue pulling the lids off all the other bottles and pour the contents back into a unified country again. Our President has some interestingly consistent political strategies but he has finally stumbled into an inevitable fact : Life is complex.

Well it's not exactly a definitive kind of thing but Dubai has withdrawn its pitch. Doesn't exactly bring an answer to what our country expects to happen and expects of the president the next time someone like Dubai takes a similar interest in certain kinds of American assets (and of course, will such deals just come to pass in an even less obvious manner over the next three years?). Who's to know? I think Bush is a better pal for Dubai than most of our own Country.

He probably knew Dubai wouldn't make him veto his own congress anyway. Not that he wouldn't have, like he said. I don't think he could change his mind about anything even if 290,000,000 Americans each sent him a handwritten letter personally asking him to stop something he's doing.

I must admit, I guess I just assumed Dubai felt it had nothing to lose by seeing the process through openly to a full outcome. So I was partly mistaken. I feel surprised.