And here's a piece, also from today's Guardian, about why Laura Bush is so popular with Americans:
[Her] approval rating stands at 71% - remarkably, she even has a 55% approval among Democrats - making her more popular than her husband - at 52% - and streets ahead of Hillary Clinton when she entered her second term with 47%. The icing on the cake for Bush, 57, was the staggering 79% who told pollsters she has "improved the image of the office of first lady".The article, by Sharon Krum, contains this:
But the biggest weapon she has up her sleeve, says Marie Wilson ['president of The White House project, an advocacy group for women in politics'], is the way she has (courtesy of her spin-meisters in the White House) framed her husband's disastrous invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq in ways that make Americans - women in particular - feel uplifted and empowered. "After years of being treated as virtual prisoners in their homes by the Taliban, the women of Afghanistan are now able to walk outside their houses without a male escort," she said, boasting of the success of her husband's response to 9/11. What woman wouldn't respond to that message?Got that? Disastrous invasion of Afghanistan. And how deluded must you be to fall for the line that there's been some progress for women in that country since the Taliban were put to flight? Guardian-reading and -writing women like Sharon Krum know better. Mark up another one for the great newspaper of British liberalism.