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.
Sorry, but you can't just wish away the actual timeline of the books, and read something into her language that exists in your mind only. There are quite a few authors who write in earlier time frames, and NO they don't assume the reader will transpose the dates because the book is published in 2005. Sue Grafton a mystery writer, purposely writes in the 1980's to allow her gumshoe the use of old fashioned research techniques. You really do sound a bit paranoid...it's fiction after all.