THIS COLUMN BY MARK STEYN would seem to offer an answer to Mickey Kaus’s “time out” theory:

So we’re living through a period of extraordinarily rapid demographic and cultural change that broadly favors the Islamists’ stated objectives, a period of rapid technological advance that greatly facilitates the Islamists’ objectives, and a period of rapid nuclear dissemination that will add serious heft to the realization of their objectives. If the West – and I use the term in the widest sense to mean not just swaggering Texas cowboys but sensitive left-wing feminists in favor of gay marriage – is to survive, it will only be after a long struggle lasting many decades.

Now go back to watching Fahrenheit 9/11 and kid yourself that this will all go away if Bush, Cheney, and Rummy are thrown out this November.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Jacob T. Levy responds to critics:

It takes a different set of skills and virtues to break something than to build something. The war-on-terror argument for the war in Iraq was that the status quo in the Middle East needed to be broken. The Afghan state that was hopelessly entangled with al Qaeda had earlier needed to be broken. It might be that a Democratic President 2000-04 would not have done either. But reconstruction of both Iraq and Afghanistan is also crucial– crucial for, as Paul Wolfowitz and others always said, beginning any kind of political-cultural shift that weakens Islamism and moves the Muslim and Arab worlds toward civil society and democracy. And the Bush Administration has not shown any ability to manage those reconstructions successfully. This is not a call to hide from the war on terror for four years and hope it goes away. It’s a call to understand that overthrowing states is not the crucial skill oif the current phase of the war on terror; and that that’s the only skill the Bush Administration has convincingly shown that it has.

I don’t agree that the reconstruction of Iraq has been a failure — but even if you buy this argument, the missing part of Levy’s position, and Kaus’s, is an affirmative demonstration that a Kerry administration would do the job better.

Where’s the evidence for that?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Nolan Clinard emails:

I have a sneaking suspicion that if the Kerry prevails this fall that it will be because voters wanted him to tell them that there are no monsters under the bed, that everything will be OK. Sorry, but I just find it very difficult to believe it will be because they feel he will prosecute the WOT more effectively.

I certainly hope that, if Kerry is elected, he does a good job. But so far I’ve seen nothing to indicate that it’s likely.

MORE: Reader Jody Leavell writes:

I have to add something to the character of Mark Steyn’s column concerning the need for better “construction” efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. To borrow from someone dear to Democrats Mark should be asking Americans “what have they done to help the President succeed?”, and he should ask himself the question, too. I think too many people, journalists included, are hiding behind a superficial veil of morality when criticizing the President. After all, if Mark agrees that construction is the right thing to do why hasn’t he bent over backwards in his columns to help achieve that. Is the only legitimate reporting
negative and non-constructive criticism?

This applies to so much of the media coverage surrounding the President and his efforts to secure the country. So many see their job as de-constructing the Administration, especially in time of war, to provide that extra check on power that only the fourth branch of government can provide. But they forget that democracy is a team venture and that the President has been elected by that team to lead them to victory. Moving to a football analogy, they have elected to be on the team and he has been designated the quarterback. When will they stop blaming him for dropping the ball and when will they start blocking in
support?

I agree with the general point, although I think a review of Mark Steyn’s columns will indicate that he has, in fact, been quite constructive.

UPDATE: Jody Leavell sends this correction:

I have to make a correction in a letter I submitted to you July 9, 2004. My letter was a retort to a column clipping of Jacob T. Levy, not Mark Steyn, and was, frankly, a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. As you noted about my letter, the general point was pertinent, but I made a “cut and paste” error when composing the message. I can only give myself credit for being consistent in the error and using Mark’s first name after that initial blunder. You were right to point out that Mark Steyn has been a very constructive critic and supporter of the President and the nation. If you replace Jacob’s name for Mark’s then you can see the correct target of my irritation.

I kind of thought that was what was going on.