Barack Obama spent much of his presidential campaign more than suggesting that we wouldn't, under his presidency, be the same kind of nation that George W. Bush led, or tried to. We beat our breasts over Abu Ghraib, wailed about Guantanamo, lamented the presence of American troops in troops in Iraq -- on a mission designed to punish bad people.

Certain bad people soon got the message that we're rethinking the whole punishment business. If they pushed back just a little, they might find the American tiger to be made of flimsy paper. North Korea, with its missile tests, and Iran, with its reputed determination to go nuclear, push back against America. So also Russia, with its aggressive attitudes toward the United States on practically everything, including the war on terror.

War on what? According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, she and those around her no longer talk that way. Instead they converse more spaciously of "overseas contingency operations." "Terrorism" itself is a goner of a phrase, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who prefers to speak of "man-caused disasters." Depend on the bureaucracy to come up with language that leaves everyone in doubt as to whether America is contending with people who want to destroy the nation, or with silt pile-ups in the Amazon basin.

Let's hear Congressman Payne once more: "if you don't deal with criminal behavior, then it will continue."

We know this; that's the sad part of it all. We don't need, intellectually, to hear explained for us the link between weakness in the Western nations and Adolf Hitler's escalating threats. It is part of our folklore, requiring only to be dusted off a little.

Unwillingness to believe that circumstances today are different, to doubt that face-to-face rapport has its limitations when you're dealing with scum -- there's where we fall short in our attitude toward the outside world. We don't believe what we know to be true.