The problem is that you're looking at this as if it were a political issue from the start, which it wasn't. There was no "political mistake" to be made here because it was much more of a legal/financial issue than anything else. This is why nobody gave a damn about it for more than two months after it was formally announced in late November of last year. This is also why it is absolutely ridiculous for the Bush administration to face this kind of criticism (especially from Republicans)
for doing exactly what the law says it is supposed to do when the proposed acquisition of P&O Ports was announced.
Citing a 19% "approval rating" for this deal is like telling me that 19% of the people in the U.S. approve of paying taxes, or approve of how much they pay for gasoline.
And these polls were conducted after the MSM told the public that we were SELLING our PORTS.If they had asked me I would have said the same thing before I knew the FACTS