Look, the Democratic Party can deflect the issue like Wonder Woman dealing with a machine gun attack, but the fact remains that:

- The Democratic Party, and its President, had almost eight years of dealing with terrorism. Their record speaks for itself. This is relevant to the next election as much as Democratic tax policies over the past decade is relevant to the next election.

- We have a pretty good idea of what Bush's approach is. That record, good and bad, also speaks for itself.

- While almost certainly a President Gore would not have gone into Iraq after 9/11, one can make a pretty good case given the precedent of the previous eight years that he would not have gone into Afghanistan either. Not for regime change, at least. Bomb the camps? Very probably. Even likely. Troops on the ground? Not the way Desert Fox was fought, was it? As with the Bosnia war, we suffered no casualties in the Desert Fox air and missile attack on Iraq. That's pretty darn appealing to a president, so why change these tactics? Iraqi casualties? Who cares? There's no pictures.

If Kerry wants to win the election, he is going to have to convince people that--true or not--the Democratic plan this time around isn't a repeat of the last time. It is interesting that Kerry is bringing hawks like McCain up as possible Defense Secretaries.