San Diego Union Tribune February 23, 2006 ANALYSIS Bush alone on port deal as GOP crew jumps ship By George E. Condon Jr. COPLEY NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON – It is a measure of the political troubles stirred up by his handling of the controversy over control of key U.S. ports that President Bush's only ally in this fight seems to be former President Carter, usually one of his toughest critics. Advertisement Undeterred by the president's blunt threat to use his first veto, his party's top congressional leaders and most Republicans in the House and Senate have abandoned him. The best he has been able to get is a tepid promise by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to hear out the president's explanation. But Bush's problems are worse than political embarrassment. If those leaders follow through on their threat to torpedo the deal to give control of six major ports – including New York and Baltimore – to a company from the United Arab Emirates, the president will be confronted with a major foreign-policy defeat, humiliating a country he considers an ally against terrorism. Also, his dreams of a free-trade pact with the UAE – the United States' third-largest trading partner in the Middle East – will disappear. “What is so frustrating is that this is a problem of their own making,” Republican strategist Rich Galen said. “I have no idea why they didn't see the politics of this.” After 24 hours of conferring with Republican officeholders, Galen concluded that it will be difficult for the White House to avoid a humbling setback here. If Congress acts, all analysts agree that the sale will be blocked. “If the president vetoes it, I believe – based on my e-mails from members of Congress – the veto will be overridden,” Galen said. He said both sides need to find a way out. “The president is bristling because he finds it hard to believe that anybody, especially his own allies, believe that for one second he would do anything to harm American security,” Galen said. “Hopefully, calmer heads will prevail and events will transpire that let everybody climb back from the ledge. But they better climb back pretty fast.” But both sides were still out on the ledge yesterday, and the rhetoric showed no signs of cooling. As unhappy as the Republicans are, Democrats are gleeful at the White House's stumbling. “This is the Lord's gift to the Democratic Party. It is not every day that the Democratic Party gets to the right of the Republicans on national security,” said Marshall Wittmann, an official at the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. “This passes the talk-radio test,” Wittmann said. “It is something that can fire up a radio talk-show host on the right or the left. Finally, the president has proven that he can bring the country together. “It is an extraordinary moment. It defies the actual policy and merits. It is something that hits you in the gut.” On the leading radio talk show, host Rush Limbaugh was clearly anguished at the storm enveloping the White House – and that Carter was the most outspoken figure supporting Bush. “It doesn't help (that) this idiot Jimmy Carter has just come out for this port deal,” Limbaugh said. “I mean . . . Jimmy Carter's just blown this deal sky-high by coming out and endorsing it.” In many ways, the controversy is a result of the White House's failure to consult with Congress before the decision to allow a company from Dubai to run the ports. But as the administration scrambled yesterday to control the damage, it became clear that the lack of consultation extended to the president. An embarrassed White House had to admit that no one had informed Bush of the deal before it was approved. No one with any political antennas – neither White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card nor any of his top deputies – was involved in the decision. For Republicans, the open break with their president is stunning after five years of marching almost in lockstep with Bush. But pollster Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said Bush can only blame himself. “He's giving them all the reasons in the world why they should run separate from the administration in the off-year elections,” Miringoff said, adding that the list of White House missteps in the past year “has been growing longer and longer . . . and it starts to take its toll, and that's what we're starting to see.” Thomas Mann, an expert on Congress and politics at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said, “The president has lost his political standing and is now seen by most Republicans as a liability in the 2006 elections.” Mann said this latest firestorm could have been avoided by advance consultation with Congress. “You might have had a chance of warding this off,” he said. “Now, it is a huge political loser for the administration however it ends.” Wittmann joked that the situation is so bad that “the White House may be looking nostalgically back on last week, when the vice president shot somebody. For them, those are the good old days.” »Next Story»