Daily Briefing: The Great Unraveling
* Dubai Port World will sell U.S. ports; the company "announced its decision after the White House appeared to signal that Mr.Bushwanted a face-saving way out of the shift by declining to repeat his veto threat." [ WP , NYT , W$J ]
* Port saga upended Republican strategy for midterm elections. GOP pollster: "[Bush] has no political capital. Slowly but surely it's been unraveling. There's been a direct correlation between the trajectory of his approval numbers and the -- I don't want to call it disloyalty -- the independence on the part of the Republicans in Congress." [ WP ]
* Dubai Port World --andBush-- came to see the "political reality." [ NYT ]
* Tribe chief secured meeting withBushafter donating $25,000 toGrover Norquistgroup at the advice ofJack Abramoff. [ NYT ]
* Senate panel receives its first White House briefing about NSA eavesdropping. [ WP ]
* Pentagon will let Iraqi forces deal with civil war,Rumsfeldsays. [ WP ]
* Some fear the U.S. is becoming more protectionist and isolationist. [ NYT , WP ]
*Bushseeks more faith-based funds. [ NYT , WP ]
*Abramoff's BMW had $48,000 worth of custom work. [ NYT ]