I think you vastly over-estimate how much attention the general public -- even the educated, broadsheet-reading public -- has been paying to this story. At most, people just have some general, fuzzy, back-of-the mind perception that "Oh, yeah, they never caught the guy, but they think maybe it was some lone nut." It's not like people are locked into that. Nothing definitive has ever been said -- in fact, every official statement on the anthrax has been a masterpiece in the art of saying nothing in as many words as possible. If a few more tidbits like this latest revelation are dribbled out over the coming weeks, then Bush goes on TV and says "It's Iraq -- the bombing starts in five minutes," nobody will bat an eyelid. Besides, what choice did Bush have? Realistically, could he have gone on TV last October and said: "Saddam destroyed the WTC, tried to destroy the White House and the Capitol, and I can't hit back because he would kill millions of people and turn New York City into a useless patch of wasteground --please bear with me while I try to come up with something"? Politics is the "art of the possible." The benefits and costs of any course of action must be judged against the alternatives. That's what executives do. Bush knows that. That why he's got the big office.