mommy, i'm scared »

this is why the thought of kerry being president terrifies me to no end.

''We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance,'' Kerry said. ''As a former law-enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution. We're never going to end illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where it isn't on the rise. It isn't threatening people's lives every day, and fundamentally, it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.''

um, ok! so terrorism doesn't threaten people's lives every day? it's not threatening the fabric of my life? senator, i beg to disagree. and i'm sure that the families of the victims of 9/11, of beslan, of the uss cole, of what have you also disagree. kerry apparently doesn't believe that we can win. and that's what scares the crap right outta my butt.

it's also good to note that kerry feels the same way about terrorism that he does about prostitution and gambling -- that it should be a nuisance.

and then, as if i'd forgotten that the nytimes, no matter how good their paper seems on the surface, is nothing but a haven for radicals and psychos, they gently remind me in the next paragraph.

If mobsters could be chased into the back rooms of seedy clubs, then so, too, could terrorists be sent scurrying for their lives into remote caves where they wouldn't harm us. Bush had continually cast himself as the optimist in the race, asserting that he alone saw the liberating potential of American might, and yet his dark vision of unending war suddenly seemed far less hopeful than Kerry's notion that all of this horror -- planes flying into buildings, anxiety about suicide bombers and chemicals in the subway -- could somehow be made to recede until it was barely in our thoughts.

kerry's vision of terrorism as some sort of background noise is hopeful? the knowledge that exists somewhere in the back of my mind that terrorists are lurking around in caves is supposed to somehow reassure me? i have no words. no words, that is, that i can type on a pg-13 blog.