America/Conor O'Clery: The Republican convention in New York was noteworthy for the absence of several key members from the Bush administration.
Secretary of State Colin Powell stayed in Washington. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was nowhere to be seen, nor was his deputy Paul Wolfowitz. Attorney General John Ashcroft did not show up. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge kept out of sight. This led to much speculation that they are the ones who will be out of a job if President Bush gets a second term.
The first-term cabinet survived the crises of the last four years remarkably intact. Only four top officials moved on, most notably CIA director George Tenet, compared to eight in Bill Clinton's first term. But a big shake-up is coming.
Powell is making no secret of the fact that he wants out of an administration that required him to put his reputation for integrity on the line with his UN presentation on weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. Rumsfeld is damaged by the war mistakes and the prison scandal but may be kept on for a short while to counter perceptions that he is a liability.
Paul Wolfowitz may stay on but as the intellectual godfather of the Iraq war is so distrusted by Democrats that he would face a vicious confirmation hearing. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice is tipped in some quarters as the next Secretary of State but she may return to academe after a bruising first term.
Despite his missteps, the former chief US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, is said to be favoured for a cabinet post. And Bush may reward former rival John McCain for his support, though the Arizona senator told USA Today that he could be more effective in the Senate. One top job going begging is that of chairman of the Federal Reserve, as Alan Greenspan retires in January 2006. And the new president may have to replace up to three of the eight ageing Supreme Court judges. That was one of the worries that motivated protesters in New York to rally against a second term for Bush.
Other faces missing from the Republican line-up at Madison Square Garden were Richard Perle, former chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board, and Under Secretary of Defence Douglas Feith. Perle, a super hawk on Iraq, has been caught up in the scandal of Hollinger International, the newspaper empire that was looted to the tune of $400 million by Lord Conrad Black and his associates, according to a Hollinger Board report this week. The report alleges that Perle, who headed an executive committee for the company, was an "abject failure" and repeatedly failed to "read, evaluate, discuss or attempt to understand" documents that he signed that enabled the flamboyant Black to rip off his company. It said Perle put his own financial interests ahead of those of Hollinger's public shareholders and should return over $5 million he received from the firm. Douglas Feith, a neo-conservative who has been accused of promoting a hard-line pro-Israel policy within the administration, finds his office under investigation in a spying scandal. One of his officials, Lawrence Franklin, an advocate of overthrowing the regime in Iran, allegedly leaked details of the Pentagon's secret Iran policy to the American-Israel public affairs committee, a powerful lobby group in Washington, which is said to have passed them on to the Israeli government.
One of the most careful bits of choreography at the last night of the convention was the timing of Richard Cheney's decision to lift his grandchild onto his lap. Up until then Cheney and his family party in the vice-presidential box had been jumping up and down like Texas oil derricks in a series of standing ovations during the President's speech.
Just after Cheney's grandfatherly act, the President touched on his advocacy of "the protection of marriage", codewords for the party's opposition to gay unions and Bush's support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Cheney, whose daughter Mary is lesbian, could not, of course, join in with a child on his knee. As Mr Bush moved on to other topics, Mr Cheney gently handed the grandchild back to its mother. Mary Cheney herself was nowhere to be seen.
One of the low points of the convention was the comment in a radio interview by Alan Keyes, the Republican candidate for a US Senate seat in Illinois, that she was a "selfish hedonist". Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist called the remark "inappropriate, unacceptable" and representing "an element of hatred that is just wrong." Keyes is opposed by popular Democrat Barack Obama and is facing a huge defeat in the race for the Republican seat.
These two conventions have seen the end of network television's dominance of US politics. Cable television has taken over, with its ability to provide hours of comment and argument as well as live coverage of all convention events.
The big networks ABC, CBS and NBC gave only an hour of prime-time coverage to the conventions, which meant that the top speakers were squeezed into the 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. slot.
The big winner was Fox News, which for the first time beat the networks in a political convention. On normal days the Murdoch channel hits news hard, compared to CNN (domestic) which often starts serious news programmes with wittering from inane presenters. The Republican convention was a natural element for the Murdoch channel, whose commentators regularly assail liberals, Hollywood and Democrats and whose main hit man, Bill O'Reilly, is notorious for telling guests to "shut up!" A "shutup-athon" protest was held outside Fox studios during the convention by the Pink Slip women.
But O'Reilly scored a coup on Wednesday by getting Bono as a guest on his programme. Or rather it was a coup for U2's lead singer, who was the toast of the Democratic convention but who declared himself here to be a "non-partisan guy".
He got the best of half an hour of prime time to promote his group, Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa (DATA) and impress upon Republican delegates that 69,000 Africans are dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease.
He teased O'Reilly on air, saying that he would not be promoting either candidate, unlike Bruce Springsteen who is touring for John Kerry, but that "it's hard for an Irish rock star, though, sometimes to shut up".
Bono was in big demand at convention parties,as was another unlikely Irish guest, author Malachy McCourt, who turned up at a Republican event in Cipriani's to honour John McCain wearing a lapel button with the words "Beat Bush Again".
The best self-deprecating line from Bush's speech was undoubtedly his comment that "People sometimes have to correct my English. I knew I had a problem when Arnold Schwarzenegger started doing it." The most embarrassing partisan exploitation of 9/11 was Rudy Giuliani's remark to delegates that as the towers fell, "spontaneously, I grabbed the arm of then-police commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie, 'Thank God George Bush is our President'."
The most biting late-night TV jibe was probably David Letterman's announcement that "George Bush will show up for one day, you know, just like he did in the National Guard."
Rival Jay Leno's take on the convention? "Republicans went from Arnold Schwarzenegger last night to Dick Cheney tonight. It's like, Arnold's like the picture in the dating service ad, and Dick's the guy who shows up."