US: With the Democratic Party still concerned that none of its nine candidates can unseat President George Bush in 2004, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken the lead in arguing that Mr Bush should not get a second term.
President Bush and his "radical" administration had not only mishandled the situation in Iraq but were attempting to dismantle the "central pillars of progress in our country during the 20th century", she said at the weekend.
The former First Lady is not a candidate for president in 2004 but observers say there is still a long-odds possibility that she will be called on to accept the nomination if the Democratic Party Convention in July is deadlocked.
Mr Bush was beatable because his administration was "making America less free, fair, strong, smart than it deserves to be in a dangerous world", Mrs Clinton told the Houston Chronicle on Saturday.
On ABC television yesterday she enlarged on her criticisms, charging the Bush administration with throwing out consensus-building in American politics.
She also stepped up her attacks on the Republican presidency for its blunders in Iraq.
On her recent visit there she had met over and over the question from Iraqis: "Why did you let the looting go on?"
It had also been a "classic error" to "turn loose men with weapons and no pay for months" when the Iraqi army was disbanded, she added, and it was a further mistake not to have "a big enough footprint to dominate the country".
In her interview with the Houston Chronicle, Mrs Clinton charged the Bush administration with wanting to undo the "new deal" that gave the nation social security and other social programmes.
Mr Bush had campaigned as a "compassionate conservative" in 2000, but had taken a "hard-right turn to pursue an extremist agenda", she said.
"This President Bush has not only been radical and extreme in terms of Democratic presidents but in terms of Republican presidents, including his own father," she went on.
"This administration is in danger of being the first in American history to leave our nation worse off than when they found it."
While Mrs Clinton voted for the Iraq war, she has been less damaged by this than Democratic candidate Senator John Kerry, once a favourite for the Democratic nomination, who used strong language in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine to express his frustration.
"I voted for what I thought was best for the country," he said. "Did I expect George Bush to f... it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did," the Vietnam veteran said.