Mickey Kaus quotes Peggy Noonan who asks the question: will America stay on the wagon? Kerry's political diffidence, Noonan wonders aloud, could be his ace:

Here is my fear: that the American people, liking and respecting President Bush, and knowing he's a straight shooter with guts, will still feel a great temptation to turn to the boring and disingenuous John Kerry. He'll never do anything exciting. He doesn't have the guts to be exciting. And as he doesn't stand for anything, he won't have to take hard stands. He'll do things like go to France and talk French and they'll love it. He'll say he's the man who accompanied Teresa Heinz to Paris, only this time he'll say it in French and perfectly accented and they'll all go "ooh la la!"

The American people may come to feel that George W. Bush did the job history sent him to do. He handled 9/11, turned the economy around, went into Afghanistan, captured and removed Saddam Hussein. And now let's hire someone who'll just by his presence function as an emollient. A big greasy one but an emollient nonetheless.

Anyone who has undertaken an immense task with irreversible consequences from success or failure knows that will and fortitude of his followers is paramount. I have spoken on that many times before. Peggy Noonan asks her readers to fire back; is she on to something? If she is, can Bush defend the hard road?

Trial balloons for a kindler, gentler approach to the war on terror and dictatorship have been floating for months. I happen to believe, however, that Kerry-as-an-opiate won't fly. It may have if September 11th hadn't happened. But it did, and the picture of the West's doom is still clear to many — no matter what the polls say. The work against tyranny is not complete until its concentrations, those remaining despots in the world, are gone. A Bush counter to Kerry's promise of leisure:

"The eight years of rest period America enjoyed before my presidency are quite enough. We can't fall behind in this race — there's no silver cup. True, we had our Roaring Twenties, Innocent Fifties and Naughty Nineties; when the transport boats and carriers emptied to fill up the dance halls. In the United States, there's always a Happy Hour. But Americans are good, hardworking people and I know they don't believe in lying down before their job is done. And today, our job is not yet done."