Misreading his "base" in a manner eerily reminsicent of the Harriet Miers debacle, George W. Bush has again infuriated powerful Republicans.  The New York Times (Feb. 21) reports:

President Bush said this afternoon that he would veto any
legislation seeking to block the administration’s decision to allow a
state-owned company from Dubai to assume control of port terminals in
New York and other cities.   

Mr. Bush’s rare veto threat
came as Republican leaders and many of their Democratic counterparts
called up today for the port takeover to be put on hold. They demanded
that the Bush administration conduct a further investigation of the
Dubai company’s acquisition of the British operator of the six American
ports.

"After careful review by our government, I believe the
transaction ought to go forward," Mr. Bush told reporters who were
traveling with him on Air Force One to Washington, according to news
agencies. "I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain
why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different
standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign
policy now by saying to the people of the world, ‘We’ll treat you
fairly." ‘

Bush seemed nearly apoplectic, as his remarks were reported in the Washington Post:

"They ought to listen to what I
have to say about this," the president said after inviting pool
reporters on his plane back to his compartment to talk. "They ought to
look at the facts, and understand the consequences of what they’re
going to do. But if they pass a law, I’ll deal with it, with a veto."

(The Los Angeles Times notes that Bush has yet to exercise the veto in his five years in office.)  The New York Times account continues:

The confrontation between Mr. Bush and his own supporters escalated rapidly after the Senate Republican leader, Bill Frist, and the House speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Gov.
George E. Pataki and a host of other Republicans in insisting that the transaction must
be extensively reviewed, if not killed. That put them on essentially
the same side of the issue as a chorus of Democrats [including Sens. Clinton and Boxer], who have seized on
the issue to argue that Mr. Bush was ignoring a potential security
threat.

The White House appeared stunned by the uprising, over
a transaction that they considered routine — especially since China’s
biggest state-owned shipper runs major ports in the United States, as
do a host of other foreign companies. Mr. Bush’s aides defended their
decision, saying the company, Dubai Ports World, which is owned by the
United Arab Emirates, would have no control over security issues.

Hmmm, "no control over" and no knowledge of security measures, either?  It won’t be easy to explain between now and November why the UAE can be trusted to know how security is maintained in American ports, but Congress and the FISA court can’t be trusted to know the operational details of the secret, warrantless wiretapping program the NSA has been running for the last four years.  Karl Rove must have seen this problem coming, unless he was distracted, maybe….by what?

[Update: The mighty New York Times piles on, with an editorial calling on the President to undo the Dubai deal himself.  The Times astutely notes that an Administration quick to brush aside individual rights in the war on terror is, all of a sudden, oilily solicitous of business interests that might be set back in that same cause.  Maureen Dowd irrepressibly opines that W. is in the process of being "hoist on his own petard" of terror-mongering.

Further update: W’s veto threat has so incensed congressional Republicans that he has now, only a day later,
disclaimed personal involvement in the decision.  "Trust them, not me–I knew nothing about it."]