tactics. Nearly 40 years ago he helped put Jesse Helms in the US senate, and has been an innovative dirty trickster ever since. He knew exactly what he was doing when he let drop that remark to Fortune, just as McCain no doubt approved the indiscretion. Both men know that McCain's last best hope of beating Barack Obama in the November election is to rattle the nation's teeth with vivid evocations of national emergency, and stampede the fearful voters into putting a 'war hero' into the Oval Office. Both men also know that almost seven years after the Twin Towers went down, the possibility of a terrorist attack is not the prime source of disquiet for most Americans, who can barely afford to drive to work or pay the mortgage on their homes.

The signs that the 'War on Terror' is losing its political edge are manifold. In the months after the 9/11 attack the Bush administration faced no serious opposition in trampling the US constitution underfoot in the name of national security. The Patriot Act shot

through Congress with just one senatorial 'No' vote, from Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. The symbol of US 'resolve' around the world became the prison at Guantanamo, filled to this day with men against whom no formal charges have been laid, subjected to appalling tortures and denied the right to legal counsel.

This month the US courts have delivered two resounding rebuffs to the White House's efforts to say that prisoners held at Guantanamo have no rights under US law. On June 12, in the case of Boumediene vs Bush, the US Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that Lakhdar Boumediene, a Bosnian citizen seized in October 2001, was entitled to habeas corpus - a right under the US constitution to have an independent court of law review the legality of his detention. Justice Anthony Kennedy stated ringingly in his draft of the majority opinion that "the laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times".

The Right erupted in fury,