Goodbye Dubai, Hello Polls

What has happened to the Bush Administration lately?

A rash of bad days in the press has sent the President’s approval rating down to new lows - between escalating violence in Iraq, the Katrina mess, and of course the Dubai-port debacle. Oh, and to add insult to injury, throw in Dick Cheney’s hunting accident and the arrest of former aide Claude Alexander Allen on felony theft charges, and it seems as if Bush can’t buy a break.

But is it as simple as a run of bad luck? Not really - lately it seems as if the President and his team are stubbing their toes, over and over again, despite knowing what causes it to happen. I don’t mean to say that all of these things that have gone wrong are “Bush’s fault” – you certainly can’t blame him for Cheney’s “markmanship”. No, what I mean is that there has been a pattern of disconnect between the Administration and the public on a number of things, and worst of all, that includes the base.

The Dubai port deal is the latest glaring example of this. Ever since 9/11, the President’s strong suit has been on terrorism/national security – it really was the one single issue that lifted Bush to a relatively easy re-election victory (other than the fact that his opponent was a pretentious phony, and most of the public knew it). Because the world did indeed change after the attacks on our soil, we as a nation, and particularly we as conservatives, became far more conscious of the fact that we have dangerous enemies who mean us harm. That is why it is all the more shocking that an administration that has preached national security to the point of running afoul at times with conservatives and libertarians over certain aspects of the Patriot Act, wiretapping and so on, would have been so incredibly tone deaf over Dubai.

Now personally, while I understand some of the “logic” behind the deal (the UAE are our friends - allies, etc), I was still opposed to the sale, and not just because this was an Arab nation with some ties to terrorism, although that certainly didn’t help – I’m opposed to any foreign nation managing something as vital to our security as our ports – and that includes the English. But I digress, the main reason this went over so poorly with the public, and more importantly, the conservative public, is that it sent a completely wrong message – one inconsistent with keeping our nation safe and secure.

More than the Dubai deal itself, the most disturbing thing about it all is the fact that the Administration was caught utterly flat-footed by the harsh negative reaction – from conservatives. I have to wonder, how could they not have known this was a potential stink bomb waiting to detonate in their faces? But then, Dubai isn’t the first time that the Bush Administration has been totally out of sync with the base.

Case in point – the Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination. It’s hard for me to imagine a better way to anger folks who voted for the president on the basis of his promise to nominate highly qualified strict constructionists, than to pick someone like Miers – an unqualified stealth candidate who held out all the warm, fuzzy promise of another David Souter.

Now, throw in illegal immigration and federal spending – two more issues that will fire up diehard conservatives faster than a fundamentalist preacher extolling the evils of alcohol, and you begin to see the pattern. Bush’s approach to illegal immigrants has been to offer amnesty (oh, excuse me – “work programs”). Federal spending under Bush has increased faster than any time since the days of Lyndon Baines Johnson, and the president has been unable to locate his veto pen in over five years – oh wait, check that – he did find it recently but it was to threaten the use of it against Congress if they dared to attempt shooting down the Dubai deal.

John Podhoretz of The New York Post wrote a recent column, “Dubya’s Lucky Loss on Ports” in which he compared Dubai with the Harriet Miers nomination. “Conservative intellectuals and pundits were so relentlessly negative that they forced him to withdraw Miers' name and appoint Samuel Alito in her place. That move simultaneously helped reenergize and calm a key part of the Bush coalition”, wrote Podhoretz. His point was that the base helped get Bush on track for awhile, and that it was actually a good thing.

It would be a good thing, if the President and his administration learn some lessons from Dubai and regroup. In order to win the battle of public relations, one must understand clearly not only the details and intricacies of an issue, but how it will be perceived – particularly by those who supported you in the first place. For an administration that has been remarkably tone deaf with an increasing regularity, that may be expecting a lot.

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