DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST. Dumb: Democrats who think voters will ignore all of their votes against tighter security if they oppose the transfer of the management of some operations in six ports to state-owned Dubai Ports World. Dumber: Republicans who immediately hopped on the anti-deal bandwagon for fear of being outflanked on the right by the Democrats. Dumbest: President Bush's staff, none of whom thought to mention to the president that a company owned by an Arab government was spending $6.8 billion to buy P&O, the venerable Peninsula & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, established in the year in which Queen Victoria acceded to the throne. The company manages 29 ports around the world, among them facilities in Miami, New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.

Bush, forced to admit that he didn't know about the deal or its approval until he read about it in the papers, was late engaging his critics. In addition to the usual gaggle of politicians eager to position themselves to the right of the president on national security issues by pandering to public fears about terrorist shipments of nuclear and other materials, he faced opponents genuinely worried about national security. After all, two of the attackers on the World Trade Centre were citizens of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), of which Dubai is a component state; Dubai is alleged to be home to some of the banks that laundered money for the attackers; and A.Q. Kahn's nuclear-smuggling network hid behind a Dubai front.

In his fight-back

That record might have been enough to ease public concerns had the administration not badly mishandled the approval process. The transaction was approved by the Treasury's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cifus), a multi-agency body set up in 1975 to consider the national security implications of foreign acquisitions. But the committee operates in secrecy and has no formal obligation to keep Congress informed of its deliberations and decisions. That it should have done so anyhow is now clear, as administration backers from Karl Rove on down freely admit.

Even the president's natural supporters were caught on the hop, leaving them little choice but to ride the negative wave of public reaction lest they drown in it. Unlike the president, many congressmen must face the voters later this year.

Unfortunately, the White House has been piling new errors on old. First, the president threatened to veto any legislation that might force a reevaluation of the security implications of turning port management over to a Dubai company. But the president has never used that power, no matter how spendthrift or antithetical to his views the legislation put on his desk has been. That history, combined with his decision late last week to delay final approval to give Congress time to consider the transaction, has led some in Congress to conclude that the president is bluffing, and at minimum will give lots of ground before uncapping his veto pen.