Potomac two-step

always try to be punctual when attending my classes. One day last week, I failed abysmally, strolling in a little past the range that might be generously considered "fashionably late." As I struggled to take my seat without much disruption, someone I didn't recognize looked in my direction and said, within earshot of maybe 10 others: "There's that radical neocon madman." \nI suppose you take your compliments where you can. And despite my usual injunction to harbor allegiance to principle first and last, experiences like this on the eve of an election invariably lead to people asking about my politics. So if last week I implored my fellow citizens to distinguish party from principle, today let me connect the two. \nI am a single-issue voter on the most pressing issue of our time. (Hint: That is not raising the minimum wage.) At a point when America and civilization have half-understood enemies credibly promising more unspeakable violence against half-forgotten allies, the level of Democratic unseriousness -- their eagerness only to rush for the exit -- is simply unworthy of an opposition party, let alone a majority one in this exceptional nation.\nDemocrats are not the only ones who waste time worrying what the enemy will do to us rather than the other way around. Many conservatives who never had the stamina for a long fight don't inspire much confidence either. And for that very reason, one day before the election, it seems that Democrats are winning the debate. \nThat is not to say they are winning the argument: The electorate is demoralized not because Old Glory has been carried to Iraq, but because the citizens aren't convinced (understandably) that it has been carried as well as it could have. That hardly amounts to an endorsement of the Democratic position that the flag should be removed from the field. \nYou go to war with the president you have, and this one hasn't been perfect. But the Bush administration has it right on the essential point: We are engaged in a just war and have no intention of quitting it. Some of us still refuse any "course-change" short of surging our troop levels -- at least until the enemy realizes that it is the weak horse in this race. I would prefer to speak of country instead of party and would hide my face if anyone ever credibly accused me of confusing those categories. But you can't take politics out of politics, runs the old adage. So call me a radical neocon madman if you must: At least I would use American power when the principles we hold most dear are under siege. \nI would never be caught saying that a vote for Democrats is a vote for terrorists. But who can deny that a vote for Democrats is a vote for America to become a couch-potato nation -- self-absorbed and consuming on credit, with a chronic case of attention deficit disorder? If that is the kind of country you want, then, by all means, do likewise, and be a couch potato on Election Day.