US: George Bush reacted defensively when RTÉ's Carol Coleman put it to him that a majority of people in Ireland believed that the invasion of Iraq had made the world less safe from terrorism, writes Conor O'Clery.
However, it's not only the Irish who feel this way. For the first time a majority of Americans have come to the conclusion that the war has made the US less safe from terrorism. Also for the first time since Vietnam, most Americans feel that sending troops to war was a mistake, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll published yesterday.
Questions about the legitimacy of the war have brought about a turnaround in public opinion that could spell big trouble for Bush in November. When the US-led invasion took place last year, two-thirds of Americans said it was "not a mistake". Up to three weeks ago a majority - 58 per cent - still held that view, but now 54 per cent say it was a mistake. And while he always linked the Iraq war to the fight against terrorism, 55 per cent say the US is now more vulnerable to terrorism than before. The president can take comfort from the poll's finding that he leads Democrat John Kerry by 48-47 per cent, with Ralph Nader at 3 per cent. But in the 17 battleground states Kerry has widened his lead over Bush to 53-40, after being tied in mid-May. Also this week Bush lost one of his biggest backers in the last election. Lee Iacocca, former Chrysler chairman and an icon of the corporate world, who appeared in campaign commercials for Bush four years ago, endorsed Kerry on Thursday, saying America badly needed a new CEO.
The American loss of confidence in the war has been influenced by the finding of the 9/11 commission last week that there was no credible evidence linking the al-Qaeda attacks with Iraq. Astonishingly, however, 44 per cent of Americans say they still think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks. Or maybe it's not so astonishing, given that Mr Bush and especially Vice-President Dick Cheney have implicitly made the connection for years to justify the war. The dent in his credibility may account for Cheney's sour mood when he turned up on Tuesday on the Senate floor for this year's class picture. As he was approached by Senator Patrick Leahy for a chat, Cheney turned away.
Leahy joked: "What, so you won't talk with Democrats?" The vice-president then told the Vermont senator that he didn't appreciate being attacked by him over his links with Haliburton, Cheney's former firm and the major US contractor for Iraq. Leahy retorted that he didn't appreciate being called a "bad Catholic" by Republicans over his opposition to a judicial nominee who opposed abortion. There is some dispute among witnesses who related the above story over what exactly the vice-president said next to Leahy. It was either "f*** off" or "go f**** yourself".
Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was also in foul mood when giving testimony before the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. The media was to blame for only giving a partial picture of Iraq, he snapped when questioned about the "quagmire" there. "Frankly, part of our problem is a lot of press are afraid to travel very much. So they sit in Baghdad, and they publish rumours." This remark was greeted with fury by the media. Wolfowitz issued a rare apology on Thursday, saying many journalists did go out in dangerous circumstances and that (as someone evidently pointed out to him) "since the beginning of hostilities in Iraq 34 journalists have given their lives".
The resurrection of the Monica Lewinsky affair with the publication of Bill Clinton's memoirs has brought values to the forefront again in this election year. President Bush has based his presidency on bringing personal moral rectitude back to governance. So the ideal Republican candidate in the November congressional elections would be someone like Jack Ryan of Chicago. Tall, good looking and a daily Mass-goer, 41-year-old Ryan gave up a lucrative career with Goldman Sachs to become a teacher at a high school in Chicago's southside African-American district. To the delight of his party, Ryan sought the Republican nomination for the toss-up Illinois seat held by retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald. But his campaign was thrown into turmoil this week over explosive sex allegations by his ex-wife, TV star Jeri Ryan. In four-year-old divorce proceedings unsealed by a California judge, she alleged that Ryan brought her unwillingly to sex clubs in New York, New Orleans and Paris and put pressure on her to have sex in public. In one place couples where copulating openly, she said. In another "bizarre" club with "cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling", he wanted to have sex with her while another couple watched, she said. Ryan denies the conduct and says he was always faithful and didn't break any law. But his chances of defeating Democrat Barack Obama in November looked slim. Going to sex clubs does not play well in Peoria.
Members of his own party were furious, saying he had told them there was nothing detrimental in the records, and a chorus of Republicans demanded he step down.
Senator Fitzgerald said the throwing of stones at the candidate was grotesque, but yesterday, under pressure from a congressional Republican leadership that is clearly without sin, Ryan withdrew his nomination.
He enters the political wilderness along with Republican Governor John Rowland of Connecticut, who on Tuesday announced he was resigning rather than face impeachment over corruption in his personal dealings with business interests.
Donald Rumsfeld, it emerged this week, is actually quite a stand-up kind of guy.
In one of the memos on interrogation techniques released by the White House, there was a scrawled annotation from the Defence Secretary querying a recommendation that a detainee could be forced to stand for up to four hours.
"I stand for 8-10 hours a day," he wrote. "Why is standing limited to four hours?" What he says is apparently true. The 71-year-old Defence Secretary works and reads using a stand-up desk, like a check-in official in an airport.
Last week I reported that Senator Evan Bayh voted for Bush's tax cuts. His office points out that while the Indiana Democrat supported the Senate version of the 2003 tax bill because of its aid provisions for families, small business and states, he voted against final passage of both the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts because such provisions were left out.