THE BATTLE IS ENGAGED

THIS NATION MAY BE COLORED RED AND BLUE, BUT IT IS DIVIDED PAST AND FUTURE

If ever there was a year to ridicule those who claim that "there is no difference between the two parties," this is it. After having seen the two conventions, how can anyone still claim that the US is ruled by the "Republocrats," who merely exist to perpetuate the power of their two-party system?

Well, except Ralph Nader.

No, this year there are very clear differences. The two contenders hold divergent views on the meaning of government, history, and culture. They believe different things about God, the international order, and economics. But the most important difference is that one party (the Republicans) has realized that the world changed completely on September 11, and the other (the Democrats) wants to minimize, ignore, or simply deny that truth.

The Democrats still think that, as Tip O'Neill famously said, "All politics is local." But today all that is local is bound up in everything that happens around the world. Ask the mothers and fathers who lost their children in Middle School 1 in Russia this week whether anyone on the planet can still afford to pay attention only to the cookie sales and the property taxes. Those parents sent their kids to the first day of school--and, unwittingly, into the center of an international conflict.

And it could happen here.

Before September 11, we didn't know that the world had changed without us, because our leaders didn't tell us. Our media didn't notice the series of Al Quaeda victories that had been celebrated in the Arab terrorist community since the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and before. We were told that there were some foreigners that were arrested and tried and locked up for the action, but we weren't told the degree to which they linked into a worldwide terrorist network of people still at large--and still dedicated to killing Americans. Instead, we were led to believe that the problem had been solved.

Over the years of the Clinton administration, we heard from time to time of violent actions around the world, a bomb here, an execution there. But no one let us in on the information that all these seemingly isolated events were the efforts of one enormous group, headed by one extraordinarily dangerous man. We may have heard of bin Laden, and we may have seen a few documentaries on Osama flit by on PBS, but the information was not marked "urgent" for the public.

During the Clinton administration, there was little said about America being at risk. Like the mayor in Jaws, the president didn't choose to tell us we, the people--not only the members of the military--had targets on our backs. Whether you believe Clinton's claim to have told the new administration about Al Quaeda's gathering threat or not, you cannot deny that he never told us.

During the 2000 election, instead of telling us about the danger we were in, Vice President Al Gore focused on the same old democratic mantra issues--jobs, education, the environment, and health care. All of those are important, of course. But if he knew--and shouldn't he have, being the Vice President?--didn't he realize that the imminent danger of personal incineration should have been treated as slightly more important?

When President Bush was elected, he found out about Al Quaeda. (Actually, before; the challenger always receives a National Security briefing prior to the election. I don't know if this is so that he can back out if he discovers that the world is too scary, or what.) He moved on it as quickly as he could, but he kept the same status quo in terms of public release of information that the CIA and the intelligence community already had humming along. In other words, we didn't find out anything.

Until September 11.

On that day, America discovered that she was at war. It was a war that had been declared in the prior decade and in the prior administration by the enemy, via two public fatwas calling for the indiscriminate murder of all Americans by all Muslims. They had been issued by bin Laden, and had never been rescinded. More importantly, the American people had never been told.

The Administration moved quickly to plug leaks in US security, to set up new barriers to terrorists, to find and cut off their support networks, and--most importantly--to take the battle to the enemy. With no hesitation, the President moved on Afghanistan, whose illegitimate government harbored bin Laden and supported his activity.

Before long, the bipartisan fear gave way to partisan loathing, as Democrats alternately castigated the Bush administration for not acting soon enough and shredded it for going too far in pursuing security. They screamed that the Patriot Act was intrusive and fascist, yet they whined that in the 8 months he had held office (after the most uncertain election in our history) he had not implemented the kind of measures they now opposed as heavy-handed.

How many think that the new president and the newly (and barely) confirmed Attorney General could have implemented passenger screening measures and expanded surveillance powers before September 11? I can hear them screaming "impeachment" now!

When President Bush began warning Saddam Hussein that he was treading on thin ice, there were already mumblings of discontent in the nation. Spoiled by a quick war in Afghanistan in which we had utterly devastated the enemy, the nation wanted to relax, though there was enough support to start the war. The people seriously opposed to the Iraq War at the outset were largely those who had opposed the Afghan war, too. There were few of them, and patriots, for the most part, drowned them out.

But before long, the Democrats again began to chip away at the unity of the nation, musing about the WMD's, and attacking Bush on the domestic front, as well.

Howard Dean moved the Democratic party toward its protestor activists, leaving behind old-style FDR Democrats like Zell Miller, and even liberals concerned about security like Ed Koch. Senator Kerry saw the writing on the wall and moved lefter (if such a thing is possible). Ted Kennedy thundered about the president's "lies," and the entire Democratic pack delighted the enemy by attacking not only the President but the war itself.

Academics smelled blood in the water and re-introduced students to teach-ins, die-ins, and anti-war propaganda. They were in their element, especially when their anti-Vietnam hero claimed the mantle of decorated veteran. The mainstream media sneered at the Bush administration, embracing Kerry and his lapdog veep choice, John Edwards. Much was made of the Democratic convention and its success in convincing the American people that Kerry had the military gravitas to be president.

But then, the post-convention bounce disappeared. And the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth surfaced to question the very record Kerry had taken such pride in. And the Kerry team continued to pound their message into us--the nation is miserable, poor, and sick, and only they can fix it.

In fact, it is amazing that Kerry, who wants to be president, makes no remarks on the events that occur that might require a president's attention. He has said nothing about the Madrid train bombing, nothing about the triple axle of terrorism achieved recently in Russia--a double airline bombing, a subway explosion, and a blood-soaked hostage-taking in a middle school. Imagine that. The man who wants to be president has nothing to say about Al Quaeda and Chechen terrorists murdering innocents around the world; but he can't wait to talk about Dick Cheney's deferments.

After the Republican convention was over, Kerry popped out of the box at midnight to whine about how mean everyone had been to him. But this little escapade shows the desperately political and politically desperate nature of his campaign. To begin with, he went to Ohio to do this. Red people--and the folks whose votes he really needs are red people--don't go anywhere at midnight, particularly not to a political rally.

Secondly, he didn't address the merits of the convention, and he didn't say anything new. If he was going to make folks stay up late, he should at least make some kind of news for them. All he did was try to steal the president's thunder by complaining about speeches he admits he didn't even see. He said he had read them, but didn't see them. He claimed--as he always does--that his "patriotism" had been attacked. Of course, perhaps he has a point, given that the Democrats can't tell the difference between a "voting record" and "patriotism". But this is all pre-9/11 argument. It's all political bluster, and none of it focuses on what this election is about and what the presidency has by necessity become.

But the Republicans now understand that, while the Democratic issues of the past decades are important matters for the president to deal with, the fundamental issue right now is to protect the people of the United States from terrorist attacks.

Astonishingly, the Democrats act as though September 11 did not happen. They bash the president for presiding over an economy that has lost jobs--forgetting that we lost 1.5 million jobs, just in the weeks following September 11. They ignore the near collapse of the airline industry, the economy of New York, and the tourism industry. They have no memory of the moment of unity that saw the Congress of the United States sing "God Bless America" on the steps of the Capitol Building.

It's all business as usual for them again. And that's exactly why we had a September 11. Because Democrats don't learn.

When the World Trade Center was first bombed, there was a moment of shock, then back to business as usual. There were hearings going on during the 90s, and a commission that finished its recommendations shortly before September 11, but business as usual means that we don't pay attention to threats and warnings until something happens. It's like when you call the police and they tell you that they can't stop that crazy man from calling you until he actually does something.

That shouldn't be good enough in your local jurisdiction, and it's deadly in the international arena.

I'm not saying that the Democrats' issues--jobs, health care, education, and the environment--aren't important. I'm not saying that the Republican's "wedge" issues--gay marriage, abortion, gun control--aren't either. (By the way, a "wedge" issue is an issue that the mainstream press doesn't like to talk about). But all of them pale into insignificance in the post-September 11 world, when you are choosing a Commander-in-chief.

Once upon a time, the president had the luxury of wearing many hats, any one of which could be more or less important at any given time. He was the commander-in-chief, but also the party leader, the American representative to the world, the primary diplomat. In some eras he was the sugar daddy. During budget time, he might be Santa Claus.

This president has a plan for modernizing all our institutions, one that he will explain in greater detail as the weeks spool out toward election day. He intends to deal with jobs, health care, education, and the environment, and you can quarrel with them and prefer the Kerry formulation, or not.

But the fact is that no health care plan can protect you from a suicide bomber. No job is safe so long as Islamofascists can destroy our infrastructure. Neither a box-cutter-wielding hijacker nor a suitcase nuclear bomb cares how much education you have. And if America is attacked on her own soil with Weapons of Mass Destruction, there won't be an environment left to protect.

We have to live in the post-9/11 world, no matter how tempting it may be to revert to our comfort zone of a decade ago--or even of 35 years ago. The new century, President Bush predicts, will be liberty's century, and he has high ambitions for helping make that happen.

We must retain the Commander-in-Chief that lives for the future, not the old-style liberal internationalist that wants to ride into the White House on a wave of goodwill from Hollywood and the mainstream media. Because Democrats don't seem to remember.

And elephants never forget.