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In order to continue to battle the terrorists, Bush must win the election in November. Unfortunately, if Bush were to ramp up war footing against some terrorist regime like the totalitarian genocidal butcher of Khartoum, he'd be lambasted of making war for political gain.

As for Congressional approval, while helpful, Bush is the commander in chief and the Islamic Republic of the Sudan is a terrorist state. Therefore, the resolution that enabled Bush to fight the terrorists will suffice. Moreover, if an al-Qaida connection exists, their own declaration of war against us, which they consummated with their attacks on New York, make Bush a wartime president.

But Bush's winning political strategy is to lie as low as possible while campaigning as fervently as necessary to hold at least 269 electoral votes. Kerry needs 270 to win; 269 faithful electors will suffice for Bush. Right now, Bush has an almost imperceptibly narrow lead in the key state of Florida (about 4,000 votes, give or take 190,000). Bush cannot afford politically to take even the slightest action until November that might arouse the fervent editorializing of the nonpartisan press, lead to accusations of using the military for political gain (however false), tick off the enemy propagandists in Hollywood, or run the risk of perceived failure however obvious the success to unbiased eyes, lest President Kerry subjugate this great nation to the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

The Army, meanwhile, is engaged in a seemingly endless series of mop-up operations in Iraq against almost every terrorist group in the entire Arab world. We are winning this war, although the history books will declare it a "miserable failure for the United States," for the purveyors of enemy propaganda have so decreed it. And we will win--if Bush survives the election.

And herein lies the problem: an openly but not admittedly hostile media, a large contingent of seditious enemy propagandists, and even a few traitors among the ranks of Americans will spin any good news from a military so overwhelmingly that the American people--or at least a key handful of political independents in a few electorally essential states--will believe that Bush has been militarily defeated. And if Kerry becomes President, a terrorist victory might be more than just a figment of media imaginations.