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GUEST: Robert Scheer, nationally syndicated columnist, author of seven books and a co-host of the political radio program “Left, Right and Center,” was a writer and columnist at the Los Angeles Times for many years, currently a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and editor in chief of Truthdig.com

Commemorating the fifth anniversary of 9/11, President Bush yesterday made a prime-time speech claiming that the battle against radical Islam “is a struggle for civilization” that will not end until “we or the extremists emerge victorious.” The speech was the latest in a series of speeches by Bush on national security and terrorism, a topic that has become the main White House talking point in the lead up to the upcoming mid-term Congressional election as support for the war in Iraq continues to wane. Bush’s approval rating were higher than 90 percent immediately after the 9/11 attacks. They remained high for more than two years, before concerns about the war on Iraq, the response to Hurricane Katrina and other issues dropped his poll numbers to as low as 30 percent. Recent polls put Bush’s popularity somewhere around 40 percent.

We spend the rest of the show with Robert Scheer, discussing his latest book, “Playing President: “My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I and Clinton–and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush.”

Read Robert Scheer’s writings at www.truthdig.com.