This is a fascinating story that we have developing. So many times in Washington, it is so terribly predictable how politicians, pundits, editorial pages will side on given issues. To start, and this is not unimportant, I and 98% of the other people commentating on this story, and that includes editorial boards and politicians, do not have all of the facts. I wrote yesterday that “this issue is more complicated than the cheap political demagoguery we have seen” and I think the President’s decision to fight for this deal only proves that point.

Fair-minded and reasonable people can come to different conclusions on whether this is a good decision by the administration. The truth is there are compelling arguments on both sides and the policy merits of this decision are debatable. However, the politics of this issue are not complicated, and the President is on the losing side.

I have to admit I was shocked to see the President come out and forcefully defend the deal when the most obvious political strategy was to quietly back off, scuttle it or produce some kind of face-saving compromise. So on one level the President deserves credit for being willing to lead and defend a position that he feels is right against a huge political tide. However, the White House’s handling of this issue is pathetic and their knee-jerk reaction to fight back when backed in to a corner displays a tremendous amount of conceit and arrogance.

How hard would it have been to recognize that this was a politically explosive issue and bring in the Governors and Senators from the affected states as well as the congressional leadership of both parties to walk them through the decision ahead of time? Governor Ehrlich of Maryland said yesterday: “We needed to know before this was a done deal, given the state of where we are concerning security.” There is a certain amount of common courtesy and respect that was obviously missing in this process.

Given the concerns from both sides of the aisle including key Republicans like the Speaker of the House, the Majority Leader in the Senate and the Governors of New York and Maryland, you would think the administration would have been a little more low key in how they went about fighting for this deal or defusing the controversy. Instead, Bush’s veto threat comes across as dismissive and imperialistic.

And again, none of this speaks to the policy pros and cons of the actual deal. The bizarre split in the nation’s editorial pages is as good an illustration as any to how complicated the policy aspects of this deal really are: The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times for, and The New York Times and the Washington Times against.

Without all of the facts I don’t want to pass final judgment on whether this is a defendable deal, but common-sense seems to tell me that we probably should not approve management of key U.S. ports to a state-owned Arab company. And so if the administration felt they were on solid ground approving this transfer then they had a responsibility to recognize the politics of the decision and build support for what was going to be a contentious issue. Instead they totally screwed it up and in all likelihood Bush going to get this shoved right back down his throat.