Go back and look. I didn't praise the diplomatic approach, I said it was the only course open at the time considering our capacities and the alliances of the rogue nations. I believe I expressed a hope that China would take a hand in suppressing North Korea.

Frankly, I think the Iran situation may change after the election. It's nuclear facilities are a lot more distributed than before, and "knocking them out" isn't going to be easy, if it's possible at all. I hope it's not too late.

You're political analysis is valid, and a good insight, but it depends entirely on who considers Bush's record "baggage." The Democrats? France? Kofi Annan?

Lord Vetinari in the "Discworld" books rules on the basis that what most people want out of life is to have tomorrow be pretty much the same as today, have the water run and the garbage taken out, and not to have the boat rocked.

Leaders who rock the boat sometimes are doing something that badly needs to be done, but people may not forgive them for it. Look at Churchill. Kerry may win precisely because he does have the decisiveness of a bucket of warm porridge. Our country may end up regretting it.

I don't find what Kerry says about defense to be reassuring, since he will say anything at all to get elected, has contradicted himself many times, and I find his actual record far more instructive than his speeches. It's become traditional for major Democratic candidates to shove the party of McGovern into the back room and put on elephant ears long enough to get elected. Nothing new there. I still remember Bill Clinton's promised middle class tax cut.

Whatever other faults Bush has, what he says is what he believes.

In my opinion, France, Germany, and some other European nations "like" Kerry because they think he can be easily rolled. Period. It's easy to make someone happy if you do whatever they want.