The Choice

SENATOR KERRY: I have a better plan for homeland security. I have a better plan to be able to fight the war on terror by strengthening our military, strengthening our intelligence, by going after the financing more authoritatively, by doing what we need to do to rebuild the alliances, by reaching out to the Muslim world, which the president has almost not done, and beginning to isolate the radical Islamic Muslims, not have them isolate the United States of America. ...

Which leads Wretchard to the observation:

Philosophically, the choice between Bush and Kerry is not over the fine-tuning of policy options; it is between limited response with deterrence on the one hand, and limited response with yet more limited response on the other hand. A large number of the Administration's critics accuse it of not providing "enough boots on the ground" in Iraq, of emboldening insurgents by "backing down" in Fallujah yet are perfectly willing to decouple terrorist acts from state sponsors and make any American retaliatory action contingent on passing the Global Test.