The other day my daughter asked me what I thought about her moving to upstate New York, outside of Rochester. Housing up there was extremely reasonable, she said, and they would be closer to her husband’s family.

I thought about my two grandsons. They’re only three and two, but I was already planning their first Mets game. And a trip to the Guggenheim. The little guys are train crazy, too; wait’ll I take them on Midtown Direct, and a movie at the Ziegfeld. Then I thought, which one of those events could end up on a terrorist hit list? The unfortunate answer is, any of them. All of them. At any moment. Is my family going to have to sift through rubble to find our bits and pieces? Boondocks, NY doesn’t look so bad

America is at war. It sure doesn’t feel like it, sucking on a brain freeze, watching Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in a crowded, air conditioned dodeca-plex. It sure doesn’t look like it on the road, watching the Beemers and Benzes whiz by, headed for the Hamptons. And it certainly hasn’t sunk in down in Washington, where political strategy is now centered on defending or attacking the presidency, in preparation for the next election. Afghanistan has faded to page three, and the front page of the New York Times these days is devoted either to uncovering our latest corporate thief or outlining battle plans for an Iraqi invasion. Are we going straight for Baghdad, or are we going to land on the beaches? Can you imagine a 1944, late May headline: U.S.-Britain plan Normandy Invasion?

America is at war, and we are sitting ducks for the next attack. This is a raw deal for Democrats because, without the war, we were primed to go one up on the GOP in the “Let’s Shame the President” sweepstakes. We shamed Nixon, they shamed Clinton, and we were all hep to clock the big “W.” And it was going to be easy. As tricky as Dick was, as slick as Willy had been, W’s transgressions are sticking to him like tar and feathers, and by the time 2004 rolled around, if we didn’t have this war, the only people who would vote Republican would be millionaires, and the last time I looked, we still outnumbered them.

But America is at war. We can’t afford politics as usual. In World War II the nation came together, put politics aside, and elected the same guy as President for four terms. OK, we were lucky; he happened to be born to be great. You remember that old Shakespeare quote, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them?” Well, “W” and the Republicans have rolled a bunch of sevens, and greatness has now been thrust upon them.

Democrats have got to suck it up and get behind this guy. We’ve got to book a suite at the Washington Terrace and sit nose to nose with the GOP bigs and say something like, OK, we’re going to work together on this war. We think your guy has spent a little too much time with the tumbleweeds, and the Republican way of doing business just may put some white men behind bars for a change, but we can’t waste time doing the Watergate-Pentagon Papers-Whitewater-Ken Starr thing. People are dying, and a bunch of smart bombs aimed at caves in the Kunar Mountains isn’t going to cut it.

So we’re going to give you eight years. We’re going to back off partisan politics, and we’re all going to work together, hard. Yea, we know, we’re going to make your guy the second coming of FDR, and it’s going to sting a little when he starts getting ratings up there with Washington and Jefferson, but it’s either that or stand by and watch the Space Needle fall down, or a couple of hundred kids come staggering out of a schoolhouse with poison in their lungs.

So, what do you want? A dozen agencies shoehorned into Homeland Security? Airports and train stations lined with troops carrying automatic weapons? A new look at profiling? Fine, but LET’S DO IT! Let’s stop talking and whining about the money and let’s spend it; let’s stop worrying about what France or Saudi Arabia or Egypt or Japan is going to think, and let’s start acting like the most powerful nation on Earth that got blindsided on 9/11. And when 2004 rolls around, we’ll do you a favor and nominate Al Gore again.

Eight years. That’s about what it took to bury the Nazis and the Japanese. If we work together, it should be more than enough to eradicate terrorism. And then we can get back to the fun part of politics. But right now, America is at war. We need to be strong, and non-partisan, and aggressive. And when the American flag, whether it’s attached to a Toyota or a tank, comes careening around some desolate corner of the world, folks should shutter their windows and pray to God it’s not coming for them.

I’m tired of being afraid of the Nightly News. I’m sick to death of political correctness. I’m getting old; I need to get back to my dream of sitting in a third-base box, rooting the Mets home with my grandsons.

August 1, 2002