Politics

Jackie Calmes writes: "Over the past four years, Mr. Bush has swung from free-market candidate to sometime-protectionist president and back again." But lately, on the campaign trail, "he has re-emerged as a full-throated free trader," even in "the most hotly contested states... with the biggest job losses." Why?

George Bush is campaigning in Ohio, as part of a two-day, nearly 300-mile bus tour. Make that a bus-and-plane tour: "Tuesday's bus tour, about 60 miles through western Ohio, actually includes two airplane flights - one from Detroit to Toledo and another from Toledo to Dayton," reports Associated Press.

PR Week's Douglas Quenqua asks: "Of the three men honored by a women's-empowerment group in Los Angeles last week for their 'support and advocacy of the issues that are important to women,' how many... have publicly mused over his great fortune at getting to stick a woman's face in the toilet?" If you guessed just one - named Arnold Schwarzenegger - you're correct.

"It's easy to complain about the press -- I've been doing it for a good part of my career," Vice President Dick Cheney told tens of thousands of Republican supporters in a conference call. "It's part of what goes with a free society. What I do is try to focus upon those elements of the press that I think do an effective job and try to be accurate in their portrayal of events.