Port debate pits Bush against his own party

PHILADELPHIA — President Bush is having another Harriet Miers moment.

You may remember Miers, whose Supreme Court nomination infuriated conservatives and fractured Bush's political base. The same pattern is happening again, thanks to a Bush administration decision that would put six ports under the management of a company owned by an Arab nation with terrorism issues.

This decision, which Bush said Tuesday he had no intention of reversing, could have political repercussions for Bush — and for nervous congressional Republicans up for re-election in November. Democrats also would relish the chance to paint the Bush administration as weak on national security, with the help of an actual example.

And that is just what conservatives are saying.

The company is owned by the United Arab Emirates, one of three countries to have recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan. According to a bipartisan congressional letter of protest sent to the Bush administration on Thursday, money for the Sept. 11 hijackers was routed primarily through the UAE banking system, and the UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran and North Korea. (The Bush administration says the UAE is a loyal ally in the war on terrorism.)

For these reasons, among others, conservatives fear that Bush's tough-on-terror profile — which the White House intends to market for the '06 elections — might be at risk.

As John Kasich, a Fox News commentator and ex-Republican congressman, said Monday: "We're told nearly every day about the critical importance of the war on terror. ... That's why it's inconceivable and defies common sense to outsource the operation of our ports. ... This outsourcing causes great confusion and undermines the administration's credibility."

It's rare to find an issue that pits Bush against the likes of conservative commentators Cal Thomas, Hugh Hewitt and Michelle Malkin, plus neoconservative hawk Michael Ledeen, ex-Reagan strategist Ed Rollins, Newt Gingrich, The Washington Times editorial page, national-security hard-liner Frank Gaffney, at least two GOP governors, the Senate Republican leader, and (most important) House Republican leaders and a growing list of GOP lawmakers.

There are grounds for defending this deal — the UAE was the first government in its region to screen all U.S.-bound containers; the Coast Guard and customs people still will have frontline security duty — but those arguments appear to be trumped by the belief that (in Malkin's words) "the deal looks bad and smells worse."

Rollins tapped his institutional memory on CNN the other night: "The president is going to make a lot of Republicans try to support him in this, and it's going to work to their detriment. This reminds me of [Bush's] father, when the father broke the [no-new-taxes] pledge and lost a very significant portion of support. I think this security issue could lose this president a lot of support."

It's also rare to find an issue that allows Democrats to pick up one of Karl Rove's rhetorical grenades and toss it back at the White House. The Bush strategist repeatedly accuses Democrats of having a "pre-9/11 mind-set." Two days ago, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., alleged that the port deal "is pre-9/11 mentality."

This issue puts restive House Republicans in a pickle. They can back the decision and risk looking weak on national security, angering a lot of conservative voters. Or they can risk angering voters who prize loyalty to Bush above all.

Many Republicans seem inclined toward the latter.

Tensions are bound to increase. Bush can reverse the deal (the deadline is March 2), but he said Tuesday he would veto any effort to undo it. Meanwhile, Republicans want to conduct hearings, and they want Bush to share his information. They want to know why the deal was speedily OK'd, despite a federal law that requires a 45-day investigation when a foreign acquisition "could affect the national security of the United States."

"Call it a Harriet Miers moment," writes Gaffney, a Washington analyst and national-security hawk. "So, the question recurs: How long will it take before Mr. Bush cuts his losses?"