Peggy Noonan comes up with the Democratic Theme

Return to Normalcy! Wall Street Journal:

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!"

I think that this idea has a lot of merit and accounts for a lot of Kerry’s popularity beyond the Michael Moore set. Americans are tired. We wish the war on terror was over, and being partially a shadow war it is easy, tempting, to believe that it is. In some ways we were lucky one Sept. 11th. As horrible as that days events were they could have been worse. Bin Laden’s ilk would love to launch an even more devastating attack with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Sept. 11th was enough to wake the sleeping giant, but we didn’t lose New York. Now many Americans want to return to Sept. 10th. I am afraid that we will. We are dangerously close to returning to a state of denial, an attitude that the world is safe when there are still enemies that wish us ill, and are seeking the means to do so. Sept 10th was not a safe day; it was a day that hovered on the brink of disaster. John Kerry will not retreat from the war on terror. He will continue to support and buttress the gains we have made in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will continue to hunt down individual terrorists. But he will not continue the offensive. He will have little credible deterrence capability against Iran, Syria and North Korea. Slowly, but surely, the status quo will reassert itself and terrorist groups will reform and grow. Eventually they are likely to repeat their attacks and next may be much worse. It may not happen in the next for years. And it won’t be Kerry’s fault. He will only be doing what he was elected to do, acting on the mandate of the people. If Kerry is elected it will be the people’s will that America attempt return to normalcy. I do not believe that we have won the war on terror. I believe that more offense is needed. While this may not require further military invasions or regime changes we cannot succeed if that option is taken off the table. The world needs to know that America is fully committed to defeating terrorism if terrorism is to be defeated.