Set against an entertainment-driven campaign, tonight’s US presidential debate offers a critical opportunity to ask some hard-hitting questions, writes Kathryn Cramer Brownell.

Richard Nixon had a great influence and his impact is still apparent in much of US public life, says Stanley Kutler.

THE visit of Queen Elizabeth II last week, followed by the arrival of President Barack Obama yesterday, shows that this country enjoys a presence that far exceeds what might be expected of a tiny country of just four million people.

Barack Obama will become the first presidential candidate in 16 years to air a 30-minute primetime infomercial on US TV networks tonight.

THE origin of what historian Arthur Schlesinger called the Imperial Presidency now expanding the American empire under George W Bush can be traced back to the 1960s and Vietnam, but might never have emerged if JFK had survived Dallas.