"In another Colorado campaign event yesterday, Mr. Kerry raised $500,000 in a fund-raiser at the home of Michael Goldberg, president of Aerolease International.

"Mr. Kerry invited writer Hunter S. Thompson to ride in his motorcade and brought three copies of Mr. Thompson's book about the 1972 presidential race, 'Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail.'

"'Just to put your minds all at ease, I have four words for you that I know will relieve you greatly,' Mr. Kerry said at the fund-raiser. 'How does this sound -- Vice President Hunter Thompson.'"

Ha ha, yes, how amusing. But really, John, what will you do as president?

"Kerry's defense plans might be a slam-dunk for the atherosclerotic set in the national security community, but here is the alternative that the senator offers to Democrats and people of liberal values in November:

• no plan to withdraw from Iraq, not even the kind of "secret plan" the late President Nixon offered on Vietnam, and no change in Afghanistan;

• continuation of Bush's preemption policy;

• a larger military with many more special operations units, plus accelerated spending on "transformation," which in today's defense jargon means creation of greater capability to intervene around the world on short notice;

• a new domestic intelligence agency and a vastly beefed-up homeland security program.

Kerry's defense advisors see much of this as innocuous rhetoric to protect the Democratic candidate's flanks from traditional conservative accusations of being soft on national security. At the same time, it represents a calculated strategy to "keep your head low and win."

In his stump speeches, Kerry stresses a spirited dose of alliances, the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and a return to what he calls an "America that listens and leads again." He roundly criticizes the Bush administration on Iraq, Afghanistan and homeland security. He promises as commander in chief that he will never ask the troops "to fight a war without a plan to win the peace."

All that is to the good. Yet when Kerry describes the contemporary world, and the challenges that the U.S. faces, he sounds just like the president, the vice president and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Terrorism, he says, "present[s] the central national security challenge of our generation." Preventing terrorists from "gaining weapons of mass murder" is his No. 1 security goal, and Kerry says he would strike first if any attack "appears imminent." The senator promises to "use military force to protect American interests anywhere in the world, whenever necessary." On May 27 in Seattle, he promised to "take the fight to the enemy on every continent" (I guess that probably doesn't include Antarctica)."