During this afternoon’s Situation Room, CNN’s Jack Cafferty mocked the President for referring to the Bush administration as "my government." Yesterday morning, President Bush, while responding to a reporter’s question on the controversy surrounding the management of six U.S. ports being turned over to a United Arab Emirates-owned company, remarked that the transaction had been vetted by "my government" and that the ports would remain secure.
This innocuous phrase seemed to tick Cafferty off during his daily Cafferty File segment shortly before 4:15pm.
Jack Cafferty: "Is it still Bush’s government? Remember in the cabinet meeting he said, don’t worry about security, my government has taken a look at this and everything’s alright?..That’s unbelievable."
Silly as this may sound, Cafferty took great offense that the President of the United States had referred to his administration as, well, his. Cafferty, bafflingly, interpreted "my government" to mean that President Bush had decided to take sole ownership of the U.S. government. When anchor Wolf Blitzer reassured Cafferty that it is indeed "our government," Cafferty fired back angrily:
Cafferty: "Well, not, not according to President Bush it isn’t. It’s my government, he said."
The full transcript is behind the cut.
Wolf Blitzer: "Let’s check in with Jack Cafferty now. He’s standing by with the Cafferty File. Hi, Jack."
Jack Cafferty: "How you doing? Is it still Bush’s government? Remember in the cabinet meeting he said, don’t worry about security, my government has taken a look at this and everything’s alright?"
Blitzer: "It’s still his government."
Cafferty: "That’s unbelievable. So they say there’s a timeout and the White House is calling it a slight delay and a press secretary, Scott McClellan, says it’s not up to us, it’s up to the company to decide how long the delay lasts. And that means, of course, the United Arab Emirates-owned company, Dubai Ports World, will decide how long to wait before they start controlling major U.S. ports. What is wrong with this picture? Critics on Capitol Hill are still talking tough, although I sense that some of them are beginning to move away from the strong positions they took the day this came out. They say that a delay isn’t good enough. They’re vowing to block the deal. The administration is still standing by its veto threat. Let’s, let’s have a vote. Let’s, let’s put some legislation on the table to block the deal and send it to the White House and have it vetoed, and then let’s vote again. And then let’s see whose government it is. The question we’re asking this hour is this: Does a delay change your mind about the port deal? E-mail us at Caffertyfile@CNN.com or go to CNN.com/Caffertyfile. My government. Unbelievable. Wolf?"
Blitzer: "It’s our, it’s our government."
Cafferty: "Well, not, not according to President Bush it isn’t. It’s my government, he said."
Blitzer: "All right, thanks, Jack."
