True, there were no mentions of capturing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Of course, there were no mentions of bin Laden at all. But an update on the war on terror, which Bush (not mentioning Bali or Kenya or Kuwait) insisted that "WE. ARE. WINNING" -- a real potential "READ. MY. LIPS" moment TV networks and opportunistic Democrats will run endlessly should another terrorist tragedy occur.

To spell out the proof of our success, Bush listed some captured enemy operatives. Osama bin Laden? Mullah Mohammed Omar? Ayman Al Zawahiri? Ummm ... no. None of the ones Bush listed were high enough in the hierarchy for you to have ever heard of them. So he referred to them in a "some guy" kind of way.

"They include a man who directed logistics and funding for the Sept. 11 attacks," Bush said. "The chief of al-Qaida operations in the Persian Gulf who planned the bombings of our embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole. An al-Qaida operations chief from Southeast Asia. A former director of al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan. A key al-Qaida operative in Europe. And a major al-Qaida leader in Yemen."

Oh, right. Those guys. Sure.

More than 3,000 terrorists have been arrested all over the world, he said, and "many others have met a different fate," Bush said. "Put it this way: They are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies."

[Cue "High Plains Drifter" whistle.]

Earlier in the evening, Bush had crowed about how he had "reorganized our government and created the Department of Homeland Security," making no mention of his fervent opposition to the department until a few months before the 2002 midterm elections. Now he plans for Project Bioshield, a $6 billion program to "make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, Ebola, and plague."

A great idea, and one that surely has made sense ever since fall 2001, when Daschle, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather got those love letters to Allah sealed with an anthrax kiss, but again, better late than never. Bush also announced a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, a place for the CIA, FBI and Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to share information. Again -- we're just getting to this now?

"Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men," he said. "Free people will set the course of history." The biggest threat in the war on terror, the president said, is rogue nations seeking Noo-Kew-Lar, chemical and biological weapons.

"All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attack," Bush said. Other countries are being asked to join up, some are doing so. "Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others," Bush underlined. "Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people."

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