My take on it is the same as Drew's - he's been beating the war drum against the Ay-rabs, and now he's trying to sell them supposedly secure infrastructure?

That's not going to play well in Kansas. The Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have been built on xenophobia and rhetoric, so it's not surprising to find same turning around and biting him on the ass.

And yes, it's a shameless opportunistic chance for the Left to kick Bush while he's down and pin cronyism, corruption and inconsistency on him. Considering, I don't see that as a bad thing. I doubt the Reps are trying to distance themselves, because this kind of mud has a habit of sticking fast.

As for whether or not the US Left believes that UAE bosses really are in cahoots (isn't that a good phrase...?) with Al Qaeda, I have no idea. You can probably guage the measure of real racism involved over here by asking whether Europeans would be happy to sell Rotterdam or London to them.

Meanwhile Bush seems to think the ports are already managed by a UK corporation, so the original sale happened some time ago.