Let's get ready to rumble:

The unlikely tag team in this corner - President George W. "Compassionate Conservative" Bush, right-wing radio star Rush "America's Truth Detector" Limbaugh and former President Jimmy "National Malaise" Carter.

The unlikely tag team in the other corner - Sen. Hillary Rodham "It Takes a Village" Clinton, Senate Majority Leader "Dollar Bill" Frist and right-wing radio/TV star Sean "Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism" Hannity.

That and other strange match-ups have twisted out of the battle-royal debate over who should manage six U.S. ports (but not the Port of Charleston, which reassuringly remains under the home-team management of the State Ports Authority).

The confusion prompted by such unsettling alliances is surpassed by fears over which port-policy course to take:

--Let Dubai Ports World manage cargo operations at the ports of New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, and New Orleans. Critics charge that this would further jeopardize our already worrisome port security by granting risky access to a company owned by a nation - the United Arab Emirates - that doesn't recognize Israel, did recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government and was the homeland of two 9/11 hijackers.

--Let the uproar against that transfer of port-management duties from one foreign (British) company to another foreign (UAE) company scuttle it. Critics charge that this would be a knee-jerk, xenophobic insult to the Muslim realm, undermining our already tenuous friendships there while betraying free-market principles.

Tough call. This perplexed Port City native, while finding both dilemma options scary, finds the latter scarier under the small-world circumstances.

But scariest is our seemingly irreversible trend of "outsourcing" jobs we won't - or can't? - handle ourselves.

As America's slice of the planet's manufacturing pie keeps shrinking, jitters keep expanding among those of us who remember when we still made plenty of stuff. Now we can't even make all of our own telemarketing calls (has anybody else been getting phone-sales pitches from what sounds like New Delhi?) - or manage all of our own ports.

The Right blames our trade-balance blight on greedy, corrupt unions and their elected-official accomplices; the Left on greedy, corrupt corporations and their elected-official accomplices.

Regardless of your preferred economic-erosion villains, however, all American know-how is not lost. We do still have some valuable exports.

From the Feb. 17 Wall Street Journal: "Chinese firms are going to war against so-called dumping charges - and U.S. lawyers are a chief beneficiary of the fighting."

The public and private entities pressing those "dumping" cases argue "that Chinese factories are able to sell products at unfairly low prices, thanks to an undervalued currency and government subsidies."

And thanks to U.S. legal firms' initiative, the Chinese now pay high prices for American legal expertise. Beijing lawyer Zhang Yuquing, former head of the legal department in China's commerce ministry, told the Journal:

"When anti-dumping cases are announced, you can see companies receiving hundreds of pages of faxes pitching different law firms."

At least our lawyers can still compete globally.

At least some folks working at our newspapers can still make a living. Almost.

At least lots of Americans are still making lots of money and not just as lawyers.

Yet how long can that prosperity persist if our primary "industry" is making not tangible products, but paper- chasing-paper deals for real estate, insurance and mutual funds?

And if we must pay non-Americans to make our TVs, pick our crops, manage our ports and interrupt our meals with unsolicited phone solicitations, why must we send our own sons and daughters to fight our - and other nations' - battles?

Why not outsource that, too?

After all, the Persians (these days known as Iranians, who aren't Arabs) hired Greek mercenaries 2,500 years ago. The Romans hired Germanic mercenaries 1,650 years ago. The British hired Germanic - oops, Hessian mercenaries 230 years ago.

Then again, all three of those examples turned out badly for the unfortunate empires employing those soldiers of fortune.

So which example of an empire that could no longer do its own essential work has turned out well?

Frank Wooten is associate editor of The Post and Courier. His e-mail is wooten@postandcourier.com.