AR:
I understand that for many this is a one or two issue election. As a former Catholic, many of my brothers and sisters (by the way, we Catholics are the only ones allowed in heaven) vote only for the pro-life candidate. All other issues do not matter.
For you, apparently, the terrorists issue is of utmost importance and the issue that will cause you to vote republican. Let me suggest this however, granted Kerry is an unknown on terrorists and Bush is a known, but has he really been more of a deterent to terrorists?
Again, you might argue that the Iraq war has, despite Bush protestations to the contrary, deflected attention away from Al Quida and similarly situated groups and is now directed at this war which was in the planning stages before 9-11. I do think the war in Iraq could not have been better for Bin Laden.
Another point concerning terrorists, in a free society you can take all the precautions you want to prevent an attack yet, if some yattahey straps some explosives to his person, car, etc., there is not a whole hell of alot you can do about it.
That night at Barcelona's, some whack could have walked into the outside area and killed a couple of hundred people. It is just a risk we will have to live with like the Israeli's have done for decades. You can put all sorts of legislation forward, give it nifty names like the Patriot Act and you are not going to stop terrorism.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, we need to understand what motivates these people to fly planes into buildings. I believe the Bush cowboy tactic of shoot-em-up will only in the end, create more terrorists and further give them more reason to hate the good old USA.
Like your earlier post where you jumped on Auspice and I, and like my earlier problems with Dogs and Loophole, sometimes are emotions get the best of us and we later can look at things more rationally. My problem is that I think this administration is operating on various agendas and there solution to the terrorists problem will only aggravate it.
Eddie