Like Father, Like Son: Another Bush's Parting Shots

A quote from BusinessWeek:

Stoking the controversy is the sudden activism of the Bush Administration, which U.S. manufacturing lobbyists often accused of being soft on China. The Bush White House filed lots of dumping cases but tried to head off bigger trade disputes with quiet diplomacy. But on Dec. 19, in one of her last acts as U.S. Trade Representative, Susan C. Schwab filed a sweeping petition with the World Trade Organization alleging that China illegally aids local exporters of Chinese-branded products.

Good partisan move: burden the new Democratic president's first days in office with a no-win controversy that, oh by the way, also burdens the nation. I can't remember if Dick Cheney was also directly involved in the last-minute decision, by Bush Sr., to immure the U.S. in the Somalian imbroglio:

In December 1992 (in other words, after he had lost the election to Bill Clinton), President George H.W. Bush committed US troops to Somalia. With weeks left in his one-term presidency "Bush assures the American people and troops involved that this is not an open ended commitment .... He assures the public that he plans for the troops to be home by Clinton's inauguration in January." .... Less than a year later (the troops were not, of course, sent home before the new president took office), the situation is anything but funny, and after the "Blackhawk Down" episode, President Clinton starts the draw down of American troops.

Not to mention that the current Bush Administration has also taken a sudden interest in putting troops ashore in Somalia again, this time to hunt for pirates.