Yes, the Harriet Miers nomination also split conservatives into those who supported the president and those who thought he made the wrong decision. But that’s where the similarities end.

The president’s decision to stand behind a deal that would make Dubai Ports World a tenant operator at six U.S. ports has split conservatives along a traditional fault line — the one that separates conservatives on issues like immigration and policies regarding foreign investment and international trade. Disagreements among conservatives on these issues are longstanding and principled, and are more about ideas than politics.

Disagreement on the Harriet Miers nomination, on the other hand, had more to do with politics than ideas. Deep down, none of the conservatives backing Bush on the Miers nomination thought she was the most qualified conservative for the job. And I would imagine that every one of them is much happier to have Samuel Alito sitting on the Supreme Court today. But at the time, they worried that the difference between Harriet Miers and a more qualified conservative jurist wasn’t worth orchestrating a major political defeat for Bush.

Miers was a political disagreement. This has elements of that, as George Conway noted. But at its core, the debate among conservatives over the transfer of some port operations to Dubai Ports World is a policy disagreement that has deep roots in the conservative movement. The president has obviously mishandled this issue politically. But if he’s right on the policy — and I think he is — he deserves every bit of support he can get from conservatives. The Democrats are going to try to use this issue to weaken Republicans’ hard-won advantage in the area of national security — they don’t care about the policy. Why make it easier for them by making this about politics?