The Brits are notorious frog-haters. Perhaps the "wretched man" was Jacques Chirac.
Or perhaps the whole thing is set in another time period, say 10 years into the future, so she's referring to another unknown President altogether.
Read much fiction?
Chirac is not the president of a "far distant country" from Britain, it's next door. She meant the US and she meant Bush. But I'm content to go to sleep now with the knowledge most Freepers tonight don't want to accept the obvious. Maybe it's because it's such a popular children's book series, which I like myself. But given the political reality at the time she wrote and published this, this reference on the very first page of her book was not generic. It's a reference she would have avoided making, were she not making a point.
SHHH... don't tell the geeks but Star Wars is fiction too and that doesn't seem to stop them from taking pot shots...