What I am implying is that, since at least the 1970s the Democrats, the liberals, and the Left have no frigging clue how to deal with threats to this country.

You keep switching the argument to how things were handled. There is not one new thing you can tell me on the subject of "Bush blew it," right, wrong, or feverishly imagined, that I haven't heard a thousand times. What I have yet to hear is how the Enlightened would have dealt with a threat that has been building for many years and finally became overt on September 11th.

I'm not the least bit interested in how you'd clean up things now. You know as well as I do, and as well as the current Democratic candidates do, that what we're doing now is the only feasible course. They can't admit that--it would be the end for them. So they blow smoke up the skirts of their base. Did you hear the latest Democratic debate?

What I am interested in is how the Smart Folks would have done it in the first place. So far over the years I've heard only the most inane ideas, like using the police(!), destroying the Afghanistan al Qaeda infestation with a small Special Forces team, sitting down and having talks with the al Qaeda leadership, or, come to that, attacking Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Clear yet?

I have expressed my own opinions on this, and still believe that President Gore would have run a "Desert Fox" on Afghanistan, then left after a short campaign to allow al Qaeda and the Taliban to quietly pour back into Afghanistan again. Repeat as necessary after future terror attacks on the U.S., until the next president takes over. Sure as hell Gore would not have gone into Afghanistan to stay until a government and society hostile to al Qaeda could be generated--a process that will take years.