George W Bush, lambasted as the destroyer of peace in the Middle East, may preside over the most welcome development there since the Second World War.

We gripe about bias in the mainstream media because freedom of the press is only meaningful if you happen to own a press, but enough people have presses to keep politicians on their toes.

Bush-bashers hate to admit it, but a smaller percentage of active-duty military personnel died during both Bush administrations than during the Reagan and Carter administrations.

Principals have be to able to fire teachers, or you can't run an effective school.

A computer can only do what it's told, or programmed, to do - it can't force people to do anything, unless they allow it to do so.

One of the supreme ironies of our time is that a religiously-motivated US president went to war in the name of God to set up a non-religious state in Iraq to protect Americans against a highly religious movement known as Al Qaeda.

The conservatives have rightly complained about the fiasco that was the CNN/YouTube debate, to say nothing of Chris Matthews' execrable moderating. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it doesn't fit any better on that side.

Of course Mr. Musharraf doesn't want to share power. Who does? Does The Times want to share power and influence with the LA Times or with the Washington Post? Of course not.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, stirred up a storm when he spoke of the Nativity as a "myth." The Pope didn't have that problem. Perhaps the Pope has a stronger brand identity than does the Church of England?

It is time just to face up to what we know to be the case: Anything goes.