That challenge to come up with a better idea's getting old. It's sufficient that I judge the Bush's ideas to be sadly inadequate. I'm not willing to settle for Bush's "plan" to wage war without end, and if that's his best shot, then he's unfit to hold the office. It's the President's job to come up with something better than a dreary treadmill of war forever and ever. That's not winning, that's just a holding action.

I'd sure like you to tell me which part of Bush's plan is genius. What is there in Bush's war on terror that couldn't have been generated by a committee or a think tank (like, oh, say, PNAC), and once the white paper was written, executed practically on autopilot by the bureaucracy and the military? Please explain what leadership role Bush is actually playing besides strutting in front of the cameras in flight suits and psuedo-military blazers? Or his Administration. You could talk about Rumsfield's brilliance in commanding the planning for the war, and so correctly dismissing any need for planning for the cakewalk after the war; or his genius at wringing the "right" intelligence out of our intelligence apparatus.

Really, I would like to read one of your well-reasoned essays trying to make the case that Bush is a great leader. You don't have to go so far as SDAI-Tech1, who once called Bush the "greatest world leader of all time". But try to make a positive case for Bush's excellence, instead of trying to deflect attention with demands to think up something better, or, bizarrely enough, criticising Kerry for having a plan too much like Bush's ("Even Kerry isn't coming up with any alternatives for the cauldrons of terrorism in the Middle East other than doing exactly what Bush is doing, only "better.""). Are there any positive reasons to vote for Bush?