I think this paragraph from today's NYT Magazine article on John Kerry hits the nail on the head.

What Kerry still has not done is to articulate clearly a larger foreign-policy vision, his own overarching alternative to Bush's global war on terror. The difference between the two men was clear during the foreign-policy debate in Florida 10 days ago. Kerry seemed dominant for much of the exchange, making clear arguments on a range of specific challenges -- the war in Iraq, negotiations with North Korea, relations with Russia. But while Kerry bore in on ground-level details, Bush, in defending his policies, seemed, characteristically, to be looking at the world from a much higher altitude, repeating in his brief and sometimes agitated statements a single unifying worldview: America is the world's great force for freedom, unsparing in its use of pre-emptive might and unstinting in its determination to stamp out tyranny and terrorism. Kerry seemed to offer no grand thematic equivalent.

I know this is facetious, but Bush supporters like me are like the proverbial woman who gets upset with their husbands who lose their way on the road. We're upset that our husband is too stubborn to ask for directions, but we know that ultimately we'll get there, albeit a little embarrassed.

Kerry doesn't seem to know that weve actually got a destination. You can have the maps, a first-aid kit and a full tank of gas, but it's meaningless unless you've got somewhere to go.

I didn't even see this from the same article until Drudge pointed it out:

"We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance..."

The author of the article gamely compares this idea to prostitution or mafia-based crime, something that we can adequately control without ruining everyone's lives. The only problem with that analogy is that one successful act of terrorism can kill or injure thousands of people. I think we have to take this a little more seriously.