The Bush-Cheney campaign website has been decrying Senator John Kerry as an "unprincipled" politician "brought to you by the special interests."
But it's worth noting that, according to campaign finance records examined by Public Citizen, George W. Bush accepted more lobbyist cash in one year than has Kerry in fifteen.

On February 13, on the eve of Valentine's Day, Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper screeched, "New JFK rocked by sex scandal", naming the woman as Alexandra Polier and quoting her father as calling Kerry "a sleazeball". On February 15, the Tory papers, the Mail and the Telegraph, quoted her "friend": "This is not going to go away. What actually happened is much nastier than what is being reported." Murdoch's Sunday Times repeated the "sleazeball" quote and winked knowingly: "It is a tale of two Americas, as the Democrats might say."

Back in the US, frustrated rightwing media tried to force the issue, using the authority of the British imprimatur. Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, broadcasting on more than 600 radio stations, boomed: "It's all over the UK press! It's front page!" He suggested that President Clinton was the source of the story in order to bump off Kerry and help Senator Hillary Clinton become president.

Her father said that the notorious "sleazeball" quote attributed to him had been fabricated. Drudge, ever gallant, blamed the story on the young woman's imagined seductive behaviour: "Polier's flippant remarks and flirtatious manner, according to friends, fuelled the intrigue."
The defamation, the media amplification through the conservative network, the British blowback was all well-rehearsed.

THE United States is engaged in intense efforts to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden who is believed to be still hiding in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Myers, the top US general said Thursday. Myers said an increase in violence was anticipated as the weather improves and people are able to move around more in the country's rough terrain.