The Empire Strikes Bush

" '(The film) was started well before we even knew this disaster was going to happen,' he said, referring to Iraq war.

"Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid, who plays the evil mastermind Chancellor Palpatine, who installs himself as emperor, said the film manages to reflect modern events while addressing timeless themes.

" 'It is a film about how easily (freedom) can disappear, how easily we can all be seduced into surrendering it while thinking we're having a good time,' he said. 'It chimes with the zeitgeist.'

Adds McDiarmid: "It's a film that reflects contemporary events, but it is a film. Enjoy the metaphor."

The Rise of Executive Power

Richard W. Stevenson writes in the New York Times: "The president has clearly been trying to harness and expand the clout available to him and to present his office as even more the seat of power than it was under many of his predecessors. By many standards he has succeeded, in part through the good fortune of having a Republican Congress to work with, in part because of his role as commander in chief at a time of threats to the nation and in part because of his aggressive style of advancing his agenda and political interests.

"The question that has yet to be answered is whether he has fundamentally altered the presidency in ways that will outlast his tenure and wipe out the remaining legacies of Vietnam and Watergate, which were taken as object lessons in the dangers of a too powerful, too secret executive."

Poll Watch

According to AFP and PollingReport.com, the latest Time magazine poll has Bush's approval rating down two points since March, to 46 percent, with 47 percent disapproving.

Just 41 per cent of respondents say they approve of Bush's handling of Iraq, with 55 per cent saying they disapprove.

AFP reports: "Mr. Bush's popularity registered a particularly steep decline among the elderly, with 55 per cent of Americans aged 65 or older disapproving.

"He also had falling poll numbers among women, with just 42 per cent approval, down from 51 per cent before November's presidential election."

Recasting the Past

Mark Silva writes in the Chicago Tribune: "With American dissatisfaction over the conflict in Iraq reaching its highest level since the invasion two years ago -- and the initial reasons for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein undermined by the discovery that he possessed no weapons of mass destruction -- Bush has set out this year with carefully scripted tours of the recently liberated nations of Europe to cast all of these events as chapters of one great world saga.

"But the peaceful, homegrown movements of these nations bear little resemblance to what Bush has dubbed 'the Purple Revolution' of Iraq -- named for ink-stains on the fingers of Iraqis who voted in January for a new government.