Who knew Richard Cohen was such a fan of unelected hereditary oligarchies who, among other badnesses, refuse to recognize the state of Israel.
The simplest and most obvious lesson I've learned in the past few years is that the American press has an incredible bias in favor of whatever our foreign policy happens to be that day. Whoever the government deems as "friends" are the good guys and whoever they deem as "enemies" are the bad guys. The form of government, freedoms, human rights abuses, suffrage, etc... are entirely irrelevant.
There are plenty of good reasons to be concerned about the UAE port deal. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the failure of the Bush administration to follow the law and conduct the appropriate investigation.
It's not racist to object to us cozying up with truly shitty governments. I imagine the people of the UAE might be fine people. But the people who run the country are just a bunch of shitty human rights abusing suffrage opposing terrorist hanging out with assholes. The relevant question is whether these people should be running significant port operations.