Paul Harris (Extracted from "Bush turns to Iraq to deflect critics" The Observer, 30 October 2005)

"An embattled President George W. Bush sought yesterday to shift the focus away from a host of domestic political crises by calling for the American people to back the struggle for democracy in Iraq.

At the end of a disastrous week for the White House, which culminated in the indictment and resignation of senior aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Bush and senior Republicans launched a counter-offensive in a bid to regain the political initiative."

[Ed I don't know that Bush will be successful in deflecting American public opinion away from White House problems by concentrating on Iraq of all places! But actually, even though about half of Americans think that something fishy was going on in the White House, they don't seem to be much fired up about it. The really important questions for the mass electorate are: What will be the price of petrol? Will average wages continue to fall as they have been doing since about 1985? Will the housing boom collapse? Will the present slowdown in consumer spending continue? Will America be able to discover really significant new consumer goods such as those it developed in the last century? Will Asia and Europe continue to sustain American government debt by buying Treasury bonds in large quantities? This is why we need to watch America very closely because, as the old saying goes "When America catches a cold, the rest of us get 'flu".