"He doesn't have to "drop everything". He's has plenty of time budgeted for making his case about various things. He just has to make some use of it. Instead of just talking about whitebread fluff in his weekly radio addresses, he could try saying something substantive that would actually add to the discussion."
How much of this have you seen reported.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/03/20060310-2.html
All I have seen is that the President says it sends the wrong message.
He doesn't really say much more than that in that link. He talks about the UAE's cooperation in various matters, but that doesn't address the concerns people have about the UAE managing port operations here. Any government can make a strategic or tactical decision to cooperate with us if they think they can get something out of it. That doesn't mean they don't have ulterior motives.
What he needs to do to reassure people is address the security implications of having any foreign government managing port operations in our country, starting with a worst-case scenario. Instead, all he's done is make blanket statements that the deal passed security review, and we should all just accept those findings. That kind of "I'll be the judge what you need to know" attitude is not the way to win people over.