Did I really just read that the Democrats brought us Bush Senior and Junior? Call me an uneducated Brit if you like, but just how, when both were Republicans?

How can partisan polarization happen when ideologically the two parties are so similar?

Wow - people have finally realised that most people are pretty similar and want similar things. And that radical policies on either side ("let's take all the money from the rich and redistribute it to everyone else, via some huge inefficient system", or "let's have the rich keep all the money, and let starving children die in the street") are crap.

Actually, I'm curious to see you saying anyway, at a time when the Republican President is possibly the most right-wing yahoo since Genghiz Khan (with one difference - Khan won his battles). Is GWB unrepresentative of the Republican party as a whole, then?

But then, I guess I don't understand American politics. I was in the US last election time, and I would have backed Kerry in a heartbeat over GWB. I was frankly amazed that people couldn't see through GWB, given that he looked like some refugee from bad late-night cable.

Graham.