Meanwhile, on the Home Front . .
By JAMES CARNEY/Washington
George W. Bush begins his second year as President with Americans and the world expecting far more from him than they did when he first took office with a little help from the country’s highest court.
Bush is now viewed as a legitimate leader, with soaring popularity at home and grudging respect abroad. Which means he’ll be expected to address — and solve — the raft of problems he and his nation face in 2002. First among them is the ongoing war on terror.
Sooner or later Bush will be held accountable for the failure to find, kill or capture either of the "evil ones" — Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar. Then there’s the matter of "Phase 2."
Bush has promised he’ll strike other terrorist-harboring nations, but any move against Iraq will fracture the anti-terror coalition. And yet Bush’s challenges are even more daunting at home.
The U.S. budget is back in the red, and as the war in Afghanistan recedes, the debate over domestic issues — spending and taxes, health care and energy policy — will consume Washington.
The wild card in this political game is Enron: the Bush Administration has so many ties to the collapsed company that Congress is bound to discover something embarrassing.
On second thought ... If bin Laden is brought to justice, the Enron investigations fizzle and the economy recovers by summer, Bush will do what his father could not: sustain his wartime popularity and ride it to success at the ballot box.
Russia — The Velvet Authoritarianism
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