Grass-roots activists complain that the White House has persistently supported moderates against conservatives in Republican primaries: witness its backing for Elizabeth Dole in South Carolina, Lamar Alexander in Tennessee and, disastrously, Richard Riordan in California.

ECONOMIST: Lexington

At first it looks more like a fat white and yellow fish swimming through a green sun-speckled ocean, as if it and the tree and the grass were occupants of a fantastical aquarium.

ECONOMIST: Leon Kossoff