Gerard Baker - Times Online - WBLG

Border politics

I doubt President Bush moved many people with his speech last night - in either the emotional or political sense of the term.

How low can he go?

President Bush's job approval ratings are, according to a couple of polls this week, slipping steadily towards the historically little-explored territory of 30 per cent.  That accompanying screeching sound you hear is Republicans racing to put distance between themselves and the most unpopular American president since Jimmy Carter. Just before they panic completely, it's reasonable to ask: is this as bad as it gets?  Can things only get better? Or is it at all possible they could actually get worse?

My own hunch is that, as economists like to put it, the risks for the Republicans are weighted somewhat towards the downside.

Dear President Ahmadinejad...

The last significant diplomatic engagement between the US and Iran, twenty years ago,  involved a birthday cake, a key, a Bible, a colonel named Oliver North running his own foreign policy out of a corner of the White House and an ultimately failed attempt to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon.