Budweiser Buyout

Belgian brewer InBev's recent overtures toward Anheuser-Busch have met with a good deal of resistance from pols in Missouri and St. Louis. This story in today's Washington Post shows Senator Claire McCaskill doing her very best Tom Pendergast impression in giving the InBev CEO a bit of St. Louis machine politics muscle. This is all very misplaced. This isn't the Dubai Ports deal, where there might be national security implications to a foreign purchase of US interests. This is beer. This is the global economy at work, this is a manifestation of a weak dollar. People like Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond need to get out of the way and let this deal proceed or die on its own merits. Political arm-twisting is inappropriate.