Spot on, Roger. Bush was off his game Thursday night, and he needs to get his game on, and fast, if he’s to win this thing.

The notion of Kerry as flip-flopper won’t carry Bush anymore. Kerry’s tone, his manner, was calm and deliberative and intelligent-seeming–much more so than Bush’s. And most people focus on the manner of delivery more than the content of the ideas.

But Kerry’s ideas, especially w.r to Iran– were not only fatuous but terrifying.

The mullahs have already laughed at– there’s no other word for it– Kerry’s idiotic offer of nuclear fuel. But just as foolish, though no one’s picked up on this yet, was Kerry’s passionate advocacy of unilaterally casting away the only real effective deterrent we have against a rogue state’s underground nuke production program: the bunker-buster B61-11.

However, we’ve already shown that this deterrent works. In fact it was Clinton’s Defense Secretary, WIlliam Perry, and his team who brandished this weapon against Qaddafi in 1996 and caused Q to shut down construction of his own underground nuke production complex!

In other words the campaign is now Reagan vs Mondale, or intelligent deterrence advocates (aka hawks) vs irresponsible peaceniks/nuclear freeze advocates. And all our evidence is that Reagan’s approach worked vs SovUnion, Clinton/Perry’s approach worked vs Libya, whereas the Carter/Clinton appeasement approach re NoKorea was a disaster.

Bush and Rove need to be all over this. A nuclear Iran is far and away the greatest threat, the most important issue, confronting our country. And the mullahs have shown that only a credible threat of destruction–which is precisely what the B61-11 provides– will deter them. If Bush can turn the election into a decision on this issue, then it’s game over.