Now with the shooting in Iraq officially over, although I can't speak for the unofficial kind, George W Bush's next objective is to get reelected in 2004. Keen to avoid the fate of his father who after winning the first gulf war lost the following election 21 months later, his first move is a $550 billion tax cut. This strikes as a little odd as the US economy that is already $252 billion in the red and will probably finish the year some $400 billion adrift. But with so much else wrong with the US economy George W doesn't have a lot of time for subtlety and tax cuts are a good a distraction as any, although for the 2 million Americans who have lost their jobs since GWB took office tax cuts seem probably too subtle. He's also being ruthless with his own party members who step out of line, Olympia Snowne and George Voinovich who oppose the tax cuts have had TV ads calling them "so called Republicans" who "stand in the way of tax cuts" and who like "so-called allies like France" stood in the way of the Iraq invasion. Ouch!! So anyone opposing Mr Bush is effectively French or a least a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey. But no US president since 1945 has won an election whilst presiding over an increase in unemployment so he could come a cropper on the Clintonian maxim that US elections are always about the economy.