For two or three years running, it seems, all we've heard from the political left in the United States, concerning the war on terror, is: Aren't we awful?

Blog and editorial commentary around presidential election time tilted heavily to the view that it was high time we restored constitutional liberties after their trashing by the George W. Bush administration. We needed to close the Guantanamo holding pen for terrorists, tighten the rules against spying on Americans, renounce disgusting forms of interrogational persuasion (usually labeled torture), and broaden the judicial rights of suspected or accused terrorists.

That was before Mumbai and the fiendish slaughter by Islamic terrorists of nearly 200 unoffending Indians, along with a few foreigners, including an American Jewish couple with, fortunately, an unharmed 2-year-old child.

If the Mumbai bloodbath fails to refocus some American eyes on the complexity and immense risk involved in combating homicidal maniacs, what, frankly, will?

I have grown fond of using the phrase "homicidal maniacs" when discussing terrorists. It's what they are, and if not demented, (meaning deprived of reason, in the way modern psychiatry has taught us to talk), they're morally hollow, which comes to the same thing. They're kindred spirits to Javier Bardem in "No Country for Old Men"; killing machines, without pity or remorse; the diametrical opposites of, shall we say, Jesus, Socrates and the Buddha.

Possibly there's no use laboring the point. How you endeavor to stop mad dogs is the point: not shooting on sight, of course, unless they come foaming around the corner, but, rather, to begin with taking them as seriously as they take their potential victims.

I'm not sure the Western left is ready for that crucial step. Its legions would rather shred Bush. Not to mention Vice President Cheney, whom various left-wing types hope they can indict for God knows what after he leaves office, as punishment for helping keep us safe. Continued...