Respond to what I wrote, and tell me why America wouldn't be better off recognizing our own strength and acting from a position of confidence.

Robert, this sentence is a load of gas. One of many I have had thrown at me from many different sources, all breaking down to "we would do it BETTER." Specifics? Go fish. You think you're the only person I talk to about this?

Tell me what a president would ACTUALLY DO to deal with the current threats "from a position of confidence." Or "appropriate force." Or any of the other weasel phrases people use to make someone think they actually said something, instead of gas. Although I've found that this seems almost impossible, try to avoid ideas that hang out there by themselves, unsuspended, like "capture Osama," or "negotiate with X"

Shut down the surveillance, or publicize it in the Congress and courts to the point where it's useless? Pull out of Iraq? How long before our enemies work extra hard to get the same result in Afghanistan? You think one-on-one negotiations with Iran would buy us anything more than the utterly useless U.N. talks? North Korea? These are all the solutions I've seen so far from Democrats. Standard liberal solutions to foreign policy problems that have failed at least as badly as the military ones. The diplomatic failures just don't make as much noise until they devolve into inevitable military action.

You have something new to offer? Let us know.

Or to deal with your post in particular, filled with nice-sounding phrases that don't go anywhere. Tell me how someone would ACTUALLY deal from a "position of strength and confidence." Does it occur at ALL to you why a 900 lb. gorilla gets respect? Or how a "wolf pack" responds to a threat? You don't even have enough of a handle on this concept to realize what your metaphors would mean in the real world. Your rhetoric sounds particularly inappropriate coming from someone who would probably demand Bush's impeachment and the shutdown of the country if five people got killed in a bomb in some Kansas mall. You think I don't remember the "why didn't they PROTECT us" squealing after 9/11?

Do you even realize what we've just seen in Lebanon? How pathetic the cease fire is? How that affects the entire situation for everybody? Or are you still stuck on the perceptions?