W's illogic is flawless

A scary dilemma posed by Maureen in today's NYT:

[Mr. Bush's] illogic is flawless and may be catching. A Washington Post poll published yesterday found that 55 percent of Americans like the way Mr. Bush is handling terrorism, up five points in three weeks. So even though the poll showed that a record high number of Americans say Mr. Bush's war was a mistake, more Americans trust Mr. Bush to make the U.S. more secure.

Many voters think that the president and vice president are unjustifiably putting lives at risk by going to war with a false premise and creating more terrorists. But many voters are apparently dithering because they are too wary of the alternative to boot out Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney.

The nub of this election is that John Kerry has so far failed to convince voters that he'll do what Mr. Bush promised to do and hasn't: go after Osama and Al Qaeda and destroy them. Unless Mr. Kerry can make that sale, Americans face not a false dilemma, but a real one.