Bush backs McCain, but from afar

John McCain's Republican convention re-lit the political fires under his White House bid with a brief but ringing endorsement from George W. Bush - a speech beamed in from Washington as the Arizona senator looked to detach his candidacy from the unpopular sitting US president.

The absence of the two-term Republican president from his own party's convention hall on Tuesday was highly unusual, as was the presence and advocacy of independent Senator Joe Lieberman, the vice-presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket that lost to Bush by a razor-thin margin eight years ago.

And hanging threateningly over the fragile convention were jarring and multiplying questions about McCain's vice-presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.