The CIA in 2002 had sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate the claims, and he went public in July 2003 criticizing the Bush administration's case for going to war in Iraq.
And the New Hampshire result suggested that Mr McCain's Populist Conservatism might be more compelling, in any case, than Mr Bush's Compassionate sort.
He has kept the national security infrastructure in place, followed through with Bush's plans on Iraq and Afghanistan (withdrawing in the first case and increasing troops, then diminishing U.S. presence in the second case), and strategically employed aggressive military power such as drone strikes and assassinations against the leadership of al Qaeda.
Mr Bush's decision to intervene in the Schiavo case annoyed both defenders of states' rights and the business lobby, which regarded the battle over the dying brain-damaged woman in Florida as a distraction.
ECONOMIST: Hardly a triumph. But don't count George Bush out just yet
While the indictment of Libby was a blow for the White House, Fitzgerald and his grand jury did not bring charges against Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, who was also entangled in the case.
Relations between the Bush administration and New York's Masters of the Universe are poor in any case.
In fact, the conservatives were in the minority in the last term's biggest case, when the justices struck down President Bush's military tribunal system.
America's presence has not been invisible: last month, President George Bush sent 2, 300 marines to anchor off Liberia's coast in case of further trouble.
Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative appointed to the court last year by President Bush, recused himself from Tuesday's arguments because he had voted in the case while serving on a lower court.
Even the Washington Post found the spectacle of President Bush aligning himself with the transnationalists in this case to be an unacceptable derogation of U.S. sovereignty.
Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, submits that the state has the authority to intervene in the case.
Some were downright indignant over the Bush administration's claim that a new federal law bars the high court from ruling in the Hamdan case.
The current case in point is Mr. Dodd's refusal to allow a hearing and vote on President Bush's nominee for assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, Otto Reich.
Many legal analysts snickered at the Bush team's attempt to push the case toward the Supreme Court, pointing out there was little in the GOP challenge to recommend it to a federal sounding board.
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