Facing Political Realities: Dubai Deal Is Dead

This afternoon, Dubai Ports World , as the AP reported, "signaled surrender Thursday in its quest to take over operations at U.S. ports." The company announced that it would 'transfer' operations of our ports to a "U.S. entity." The announcement came a day after the House Appropriations Committee voted 62-2 to approve an amendment to an appropriations bill that would block the deal. It also came hours after a closed door session between GOP Congressional leaders and the President:

Washington Post:

Warner's announcement came just hours after Republican leaders from the House and Senate met with President Bush to tell him Congress appeared ready to block the deal.

The GOP leaders gave Bush their assessment of where the deal stood at a private meeting at the White House, according to Amy Call, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). [...]

Less than an hour after Warner's announcement, critics of the Dubai takeover continued to press their point and forced a Senate vote on the issue. The Senate voted 51-47 to clear the way for a vote on blocking the takeover. [...]

A knowledgeable Senate aide said the GOP leaders told Bush today that they would not be able to stave off a vote.

More, from AP:

"This should make the issue go away," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. The Tennessee Republican was one of several GOP leaders to tell President Bush earlier in the day that Congress was ready to ignore his veto threat and scuttle the deal.

Several Republican officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Frist and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had been privately urging the firm to give up its plans.

After weeks of controversy and White House veto threats that spokesman Scott McClellan renewed at midmorning Thursday the end came unexpectedly.

This is fascinating. First of all, this was the only way that the White House could cut their losses and kill this deal. The President needed DPW to 'voluntarily' back out of the deal. The White House would've had an awful time defending this deal through weeks of Congressional abuse. Also, I don't believe that President Bush would have actually vetoed any Congressional action on this issue. If he did, he and his party would've suffered dearly, politically speaking. Killing these deal before a veto showdown was the only real option.

While Senator Frist may hope that this issue will just go away, the Democrats (if they're smart) will not let it go away. This issue is illustrative of the President's incompetence. This should be a key issue in '06 and '08. Democrats should nationalize these midterm elections and ride this anti-Bush wave. They don't have many ideas of their own and they have not developed a coherent message. Until (or if...) they do develop some sort of strategy, Democrats should keep hammering away at the president.

Finally, what ultimately made the president face the political realities of this situation was the Republican response. This was not a partisan issue, and the White House couldn't save it.

UPDATE (3/9/06 - 5:38PM): Look at this AFP headline: "DP World pulls out of US ports to rescue Bush from firestorm."

Indeed.