Bush still has influence

The early – and therefore likely wrong – word here in the capital is that the collapse of the Dubai ports deal on Thursday further weakened President Bush’s already diminished political clout.

If he can’t hold his fellow Republicans in Congress in line on something as basic as an issue dealing with national security, the current reasoning goes, how can he expect them to follow on other agenda items he is pushing as this critical election year unfolds?

Or as Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio proclaimed in Friday’s Washington Post, “He (Bush) has no political capital.”

Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, also in Friday’s Washington Post, joined the chorus and said it may be too late to close the gap that opened over the deal between Bush and congressional Republicans.

“After five years of unwavering loyalty to the president, they’ve demonstrated they’ll break with the president to save their own skins,” Greenberg said.

Break they did.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats, looking at the November elections, proposed legislation to kill a deal that would have allowed a company owned by Dubai, part of the United Arab Emirates, to manage six U.S. ports. They acted after polls showed overwhelming opposition to the deal and conservative radio talk shows screamed bloody murder. Bush threatened a veto.

The president’s arguments – that security arrangements had been worked out to his satisfaction, that Dubai was a valued ally in the war on terrorism, that its ports were visited regularly by U.S. ships, and that rejecting the ports deal would send the wrong signal as we try to win friends in the Arab world – fell on deaf ears.

Overwhelmed by the furor, DP (Dubai Ports) World pulled out of the ports deal Thursday, a day after a House committee voted 62-2 to block it. The Senate voted 51-47 Thursday to clear the way for a similar vote. The pullout announcement came only hours after Republican congressional leaders told Bush they had the votes to override his veto.

It may look like Bush’s political power has been seriously impaired. But has it?

On the same day the Dubai deal fell apart, Republican leaders from Capitol Hill gathered around the president at the White House for his signing of a bill extending the USA Patriot Act, which expands the anti-terrorism investigative powers of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The act had been a source of strong Democratic opposition, but a compromise was reached and Bush got most of what he wanted.

Also Thursday, Bush gave a speech proclaiming the success of his push to allow religious charities to get more federal dollars for social work. He said faith-based groups received more than $2.1 billion last year, up 7 percent from the year before, despite mostly Democratic opposition in Congress.

Moreover, the White House has been working with Congress on a compromise plan that would give lawmakers better oversight on administration efforts to eavesdrop on overseas phone calls – further evidence that Bush isn’t dead, or irrelevant, yet.

Jaime Regalado, who runs the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University in Los Angeles, has taken a cross-country look at the furor. “The Dubai deal was one more setback for Bush,” Regalado said, “but it’s not a death dagger.”