BILL MOYERS: The Non-Partisan Center for Responsive Politics says less than one-tenth of one percent of the country gave 85 percent, almost 85 percent, of all itemized contributions in our recent elections.

The Australian Defence Force is investigating 14 public servants over allegations they downloaded and sent pornography from their office computers, and Woolworths has been rattled by an internet pornography scandal involving "a handful" of its Sydney managers.

Analysts pointed to the lucrative Discovery channel as one of the only assets belonging to Liberty that would seriously interest News. Liberty owns 50 per cent of Discovery, 50 per cent of Court TV and a small stake in the E! entertainment channel.

Their favoured son Ahmed Chalabi had no support at all, while Saddam Hussein remains one of the six most popular politicians in the country.

While half of those questioned believe the invasion was the right thing to do, compared with 39 percent who said it was wrong, more than four in 10 said they had no confidence whatsoever in U.S. and British occupation troops, and 51 percent oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq.

More than 60 percent say they have not very much or no confidence at all in the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), expressing much more confidence in Iraq's religious leaders, the Iraqi police and the United Nations

Asked how the U.S.-led invasion of their country left them feeling, 41 percent said they felt liberated -- but the same number said they felt humiliated.

Some of the Administration's actions have been so strange that those who reported them were initially accused of being nutty conspiracy theorists.

It is possible to support the battle against terrorism wholeheartedly and still oppose a political party that embraces the same cause. The Spanish people, who have suffered under the violence of Basque terrorists for years, undoubtedly feel a redoubled commitment to fight on and avenge the innocents who died in Madrid. That did not make them obliged to keep Prime Minister Aznar's party in power. Here in the United States, as much as the White House would like the elections to be about fear and national insecurity, they are a choice between two men and two political philosophies ? not a referendum on terrorism.


brooks: There are millions of Americans, in and out of government, who believe the swing Spanish voters are shamefully trying to seek a separate peace in the war on terror.What is the Spanish word for appeasement?

If a terrorist group attacked the U.S. three days before an election, does anyone doubt that the American electorate would rally behind the president or at least the most aggressively antiterror party? Does anyone doubt that Americans and Europeans have different moral and political cultures? Yesterday the chief of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, told Italy's La Stampa, "It is clear that using force is not the answer to resolving the conflict with terrorists." Does he really think capitulation or negotiation works better? Can you imagine John Kerry or George Bush saying that?