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I'm half preparing my lunch, half listening to the news on TV in the background, but it sounds like the UAE, wanting to quell concerns (most of which I believe have been politically motivated, legit or not), has said they will transfer operations to a U.S. "entity". Not sure exactly what this means, because as I said I've only been half listening..

Michelle Malkin is quickly on top of it. She points to Ross Putin, who it seems is planning on staying on top of this as it develops. I may or may not live blog it beyond this, but I think the "major" announcement is out, and I don't know that we'll get anymore details than we already know today.

I've said repeatedly that I didn't have a specific position on this whole thing, but it was clearly too hot of an issue after all the hype for it to have gone through as initially planned. From what I understand, any security concerns were unfounded, and the "Bush selling the ports" linese were all flat out lies. The only, maybe legitimate, concerns seemed to be that the UAE would be operating here and making all this money, despite a past that makes them seem sympathetic to our enemies. These could be legit concerns, like I said, but we have been friends with our current enemies in the past too, so I don't know what to say about all that really.

Anyway, what took so long for something like this? The only thing I can see is that no American company stepped up (and I don't know if one has yet)... But everyone wanted to scream about the UAE "running" our ports, but few (other than some bloggers) offered alternatives... But there still needs to be someone with some big bucks who even wants to take this on, I would think, right? And it wasn't like we put these ports up for sale to the highest bidder, they were owned by a UK company that was taken over by DP World.... Despite what Hillary and Harold Ford Jr. have told you.

UPDATE
Ross Putin now has more, including this:

Senator John Warner was on the floor of the Senate announcing the transfer of the US ports to a US investor. I think they gave him the news because he has been one of the few voices of reason in the Senate on the issue.

However, given the vagueness of the announcment, it isn't yet clear whether DP World already has the investor lined up or whether they are fishing for candidates and are just expressing their desire to unload the US ports. It is not obvious what US "investor" would be able to run the ports.

And Michelle Malkin now has links to the MSM's coverage of this latest development.

I guess we're waiting for a press conference from Hillary, Schumer, and Reid right now... I'm interested to hear what they say... This certainly took a lot of wind out of their sails, but obviously they're not going to say that. I suspect they'll be forced to pretend to be pleased about this, but they'll spend most of the conference still taking jabs at President Bush. Ha, like I needed be Nostradamus to tell you that!