Snow Snowed on Ports Deal?

OK, it's no secret that Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose former employer sold its ports business to the Dubai company creating such a political uproar now, was caught by as much surprise as his current boss and fellow secretary Donald Rumsfeld by the deal, according to Reuters.

"The people who vet these transactions aren't political people," Snow said. "The people who vet these decisions are people who wake up every morning saying 'are the security interests of the United States in any way being jeopardized?'"

"We don't want people whose major interest is the security interest of the United States wearing a political hat," Snow said.

It's difficult to believe that any policy wonks would be so politically naive, but even allowing that, there's a followup question that nobody has asked Secretary Snow. With thanks to georgia10 at Daily Kos, we discover that Snow should have known about the Dubai Ports World proposal because by law he's supposed to chair the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. So where was he when the committee he chairs approved the deal?

PS: I note from Eschaton that Richard Perle said on CBS about the Committee on Foreign Investments:

"The committee almost never met, and when it deliberated it was usually at a fairly low bureaucratic level," Richard Perle said. Perle, who has worked for the Reagan, Clinton and both Bush administrations added, "I think it's a bit of a joke."