Polls and pols leave Bush weak in port fight

Earlier this week, I wrote about the Republican split with the president on national security–and there it was again yesterday, when a House committee–by an overwhelming margin–voted to reverse an administration decision to allow a Dubai company's management of six U.S. ports. The political stench is in the air: The White House now needs to find a face-saving way to get out of this deal or continue to fight with its own Republicans–and lose the president's first veto.

This ain't beanbag. Members of Congress are lagging indicators–and the word they're hearing from their constituents is that they are opposed to this deal, by at least a 2-to-1 margin, according to some polls. Now, if President Bush were up in the polls–or even hovering 10 points above his current 34 percent approval rating–his party members would not be complaining as loudly. But this being an election year, it's Darwin at work in the Congress (especially the House, where members have to run every two years), and the Republicans are running away from the president as fast as they can.

So what's a president to do? Well, he can come up with a lawyerly solution–something that puts strict limits on the deal without downright killing it. The trouble is that so many members are already on the record opposing the deal. And he can back off the veto threat, which, knowing this president, is not likely. This may turn out to be the first showdown that Bush loses–and his enemies are members of his own party.