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This has nothing to do with the president. The Executive branch performed a duty required of it by a congressional legislative act. That duty was to evaluate a business transaction involving a foreign company to see if there were any adverse security consequences, and if so to attempt to mitigate them.

The Executive branch performed it's function precisely as the law required, and found that there was no security risk (a finding that stands today, but is under a 45-day review which congress decided to short-circuit).

Bush didn't offer the ports to UAE to pay them for their loyal service. He didn't put this P&O/DP World merger together as part of a grand strategy. He in fact had NOTHING to do with it. P&O stockholders decided to sell their company, and DP World was the highest of TWO bidders, the other being another foreign-owned firm, asian/chinese.

Bush didn't CHOOSE to approve the deal. The law required that the deal be approved, because NONE of 17 separate agencies could find a single adverse security consequence that was not quickly mitigated by the company. Not surprising since DP World is already intimately involved in real security, has relationships with our country, and already operates terminals around the world with no problems.

Bush's only reaction was when Congress, without the facts, made false accusations about the deal, accused the administration of not doing its job, and threatened to pass a law to punish UAE for being UAE. Bush jumped to the defense of a loyal, trusted, and necessary ally in the war on terror.

He was not acting as King, he was acting as COMMANDER IN CHIEF in a time of war, defending our country's strategic military/industrial alliances against the misleading and partisan attacks of democrats seeking to harm our country to take back control.

But then the american people, completely misled by the media and the democrats, came out against the deal, and the republicans who should know better jumped the shark and accused UAE of being a terrorist organization.

We are very fortunate first that the President put our country first and stood strongly for our allies against the mindless onslaught, and second that UAE is actually such a good ally for us that they were willing to bend over backwards to mollify the critics of the deal, just to keep our friendship intact.

France never would have done this for us. Nor Germany, or Russia. I'm not sure Israel would have jumped through the hoops like this.

We can only pray that the relationship with Dubai has not been irreparably harmed by the outrageous false attacks on the UAE by people who mostly wanted to send a message about border security.

And I disagree with your conclusion. The american people did NOT win today. Our country is no safer, the ports are no more secure, the future is no brighter. AT BEST DP World will manage to find a company that somehow can step up and run terminals as well as DP World does it (which is why DP World is where it is today). We can only pray that the new owners have deep pockets and a willingness to spend money for security, because the DP World agreements to spend millions and to open access to information are obviously null and void now.

No, we weakened our country today. Our allies (who all agreed to the DP World deal, who all see there is NO RISK to them having DP WOrld run their ports, see us throwing a temper tantrum, and conclude (since they KNOW there is no security issue) that we are just being protectionist, something they have long accused us of. They will react accordingly, which will harm us in the long run.

DP World will now have to spend time and effort finding a company to buy out the US companies that run these terminals. In the meantime they are kind of on autopilot I guess. Who know how the terrorists can take advantage of this. We've done a fine job of evaluating DP World for terrorist ties, how will we do with a brand-new holding company springing up in our country overnight? Hopefully this won't be how it is done, but how do we know. The future which was so clear before is not a muddled mess.

And the next time the media can gin up some contrived issue, we'll be right back here again, with sane people arguing that congress has a responsibility to act responsibly, and the masses screaming that "the will of the people must be done".

It's like a lynch mob, only sanctioned by gutless politicians.