posted August 31, 2004 05:10 PM            

Article 1-
President Bush was compared to Winston Churchill during emotional speehes opening the Republican National Convention in New York last night. Former mayor and local hero Rudolph Giuliani likened his handling of the war against terrorism to Churchill's battle with Nazi Germany. Giuliani's rousing speech set the tone for what will be four days of tributes to Bush's wartime leadership and his response to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

''Winston Churchill saw the dangers of Hitler when his opponents and much of the press characterised him as a war-mongering gadfly,'' said the former mayor. ''George W Bush sees world terrorism for the evil that it is and he will remain consistent to the purpose of defeating it.''

While Bush will pump up the volume inside the convention hail, his defeatist tone in a TV interview earlier was anything but Churchhilian. When asked by a reporter if America could win the war on terror he replied: ''I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world.''

It was the first time that Mr. Bush has said terrorism cannot be defeated militarily and reflected the less strident image he is trying to adopt in the run-up to the November 2 presidential election.

Senator John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential canidate, hit back instantly during a rally in North Carolina.
''After months of listenting to the Republicans base their campaign on their singular ability to win the war on terror, the president now says we can't win the war on terrorism,'' said Mr. Edwards. ''This is no time to declare defeat.''

Back at the convention hall, Republicans were in an upbeat mood, despite massive protests outside by opponents of the war in Iraq. They are reassured by polls showing Mr. Bush slightly ahead of his Democrat opponent, Senator John Kerry.

Article 2-

Tonight in Madison Square Garden, America's first lady, Laura Bush, makes the biggest speech of her life when she adresses the Republican National Convention.

President George W. Bush says: 'I told her: make it a good one!'

America is at war, and this is a war election. With soaring federal deficits, a hard-to-defend domestic record- and conflict still raging in Iraq- Bush is obliged to fight the election as a war president.

The White House is marooned inside a stockade of concrete and steel.

The New York Police Department has been trained to respond to a major terrorist incident this week. Cops are on 12-hour shifts.

Holding the Republican National Convention in the Democratic fiefdom of New York seemed like a political masterstroke after 9/11. Wouldn't New Yorkers- and the rest of America watching on TV- link Bush and Co. in a positive way with the city's greatest tragedy?

At the time, catching Osama Bin Laden, destroying Al Qaeda and bringing democracy to the grateful people of Afghanistan and Iraq was promoted as achievable by America's cocksure president.

That's not how it turned out, of course. Hope turned into hatred and distrust.

Last week, a poll in the city found that 70 percent of residents disapproved of George W. Bush. On Sunday, a sea of 250,000 protesters from all over the U.S. swarmed across 20 blocks of Manhattan. At their head, the paunchy figure of movie director Michael Moore, whose Bush-hating film Fahrenheit 9/11 has taken more than £55million and broken all records for a documentary.

The president is the subject of a wave of literary vilification unseen here since the days of a disgraced Richard Nixon 30 years ago. Bookshops have shelf upon shelf of titles condemning Bush as a warmonger, a madman and a reckless ignoramus plunging Americans into generations of soaring federal debt. He has responded to this- and the claim that he is behind the sleazy attacks on Democratic rival John Kerry's Vietnam war record- by ratcheting up his rhetoric.

There's talk that his 'October Surprise' - the traditional pre-election stunt by incumbents- might be some form of pre-emptive attack on Iran over the threat that mullahs are racing to build a nuclear bomb.
''I will never retreat, whatever it takes,'' he told a wildly cheering crowd of coal miners and steelworkers in blue-collar West Virginia on Sunday.

What has all this to do with Laura Bush, the quietest first lady since Mrs. Richard Nixon? Plainly dressed, modest in manner and gesture, Mrs Bush- after four years in the White House- still glances behind to see who is being applauded when she arrives at public meetings.

Now her reticence and quiet decency have become a major asset as Mr. Bush seeks to use her qualities to offset his own pugnacity and abrasiveness. Republicans hope Americans will compare her favourably with Teresa Heinz Kerry, billionairess wife of John Kerry. Dressed fashionably and demonstrating her fluency in five languages, jet-setter Mrs. Kerry told the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month more about herself than about her husband. Former small town librarian Mrs. Bush isn't likely to make the same mistake.

While Bush pounds home the message that he'll protect America by any means he considers appropriate and tells audiences how his opponent John Kerry has always 'flip-flopped' on defence issues. Mrs. Bush's role is to humanise a president who is now described routinely by opponents as deranged. The mother of twins, Jenna and Barbara, she tells audiences: 'My husband thinks everyone should have an opportunity to realise their dreams- and he has three strong women at home to remind him of it.''

A harmless enough bromide, but audiences love it as much as the oft-repeated anecdote aobut her telling 'Bushie' his ''Wanted, Dead or Alive'' statement about Osama Bin Laden had been a bit 'too Texan'. Smiling fondly, she told a TV interviewer: ''I do give him a kick from time to time.''

Just as the late Denis Thatcher's good-hearted impatience with his somewhat theatrical wife did wonders for Margaret Thatcher, Mrs. bush's amused determination to keep 'Bushie' in order takes much of the sting out of Dubya's macho public persona. Some of it could be an act, of course- maybe he pays no attention to her when they are not being observed- but it's pursuasive. Married to Bush for 27 years, responsible for getting him to quit his hard drinking -''It's Jim Beam or me'', she is reputed to have told him- Laura Bush is described as 'the steel in George's backbone.'

The most cursory study of his life before public office suggests George W Bush was a damaged character heading for a breakdown when he met and married Texas businessman's daughter Laura Welch in 1977. It's said he was traumatised in childhood by the death from leukaemia of his younger sister, Robin. He struggled through his education and dodged the Vietnam draft by getting himself into the Texas National Air Guard as a pilot. Without the support of Laura, it's unlikely he would have become governor of Texas, far less gone on to win the presidency in 2000.

With the latest polls suggesting he has inched ahead of Kerry, Bush needs to come out of New York on a roll that will take him up to election day, November 2. On the stump, he's a far better performer than Kerry. Although his simplistic language and imagery cause intellectuals to groan, many Americans prefer Bush's 'this is what I believe.... this is what I will do' approach to what some call Kerry's 'on the one hand, on the other' evasiveness. The drawback is that Bush can seem a bit simple-minded as he mangles his syntax in ways that make John Prescott sound like Harold Macmillan.

In West Virginia, while explaining how old enemies can become allies, he told his audience about the days 'my dad and your dads were fighting the Japaneasy'. He also has a tendency to suggest that God is an American, if not a card-carrying member of the Republican Party- but Laura Bush removes the sting from Bushie's God-hobbling claims by saying softly that his religion is important to her husband.

Although she remains a good looking woman, she does not have the sophisticated gloss of Jackie Kennedy, or even the new slickness of Senator Hilary Clinton. Sitting alongside Bush in a TV interview here the other night, she did not follow the usual First Lady practice- refined by Nancy Reagan- of gazing adoringly at her spouse. Her behaviour was natural and unaffected. She interrupted when she felt she'd something to contribute. Even the most bitter enemy of Bush must have wondered about the nature of their marriage.

Could someone so evidently grounded, sensible and decent as Laura Bush have put up with roosterish George if, in private, he was no more than the simplistic, boorish individual that is sometimes suggested by his public persona?

In West Virginia, George W Bush told his audience: ''The best reason for electing me again is to have Laura as First Lady for another four years.''

Not true, of course. But Bush's idiosyncratic appeal is unlikely to have got him so far without the unassuming support of Laura.

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Just thought I'd share what the folks across the pond are writing about.