Fred Barnes on the President, Immigration and the Ports

This Fred Barnes piece ties in well with the thoughts posted here Friday about President Bush and the problems he's having with his positions on immigration and the ports controversy.

Barnes does miss one point when he writes:

"Most of the criticism focused on the notion that an Arab country with past al Qaeda ties would be in charge of security at the six ports.

This isn't true. Security would remain in the hands of the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs Service. And the personnel operating the ports would be the same. Only the company owning the terminals would change."

Yes, but to my understanding the company owning the terminals would necessarily have to have complete access to all information regarding our security operations.

Despite this quibble, the article is a worthwhile read.

As the ports controversy has developed in recent days, I think one of the additional things that is troubling me is that the President has unnecessarily given the political opposition ammunition to use against him. As with the Harriet Miers nomination, the White House seems to have a certain blind spot when it comes to anticipating how its loyal supporters will react to issues of national significance.