Still feeling safer? Then let's take a trip down nerve-racking memory lane, back to October 2001, when President Bush held a photo op at FBI headquarters and announced a list of America's 22 most wanted terrorists -- a terrifying lineup he called "the first 22" in a long-term struggle, "leaders and key supporters ... planners and strategists." Three years later, just three of these most wanted have been captured or killed. The other 19 are still on the loose.

So is it really any surprise that the number of people killed and wounded in worldwide terrorist attacks is on the rise?

Bush has also failed to stem the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and materials. Take North Korea and Iran. The president's all-consuming focus on Iraq has allowed the other two spokes on the Axis of Evil to push forward with their nuclear programs. While we were spending billions looking for Saddam's nonexistent WMD, Kim Jong Il was building more nukes and the mullahs in Tehran were racing to do the same.

As if that weren't bad enough, Bush has dragged his feet on efforts to keep loose nukes in the former Soviet Union from falling into the wrong hands.

Still thinking Bush is the man to keep us safe and secure? Then consider just a few of the ways he has robbed our Homeland Security Peter to pay his foreign occupation Paul:

Our ports are still woefully unprotected and underfunded. Since 9/11, Bush has allocated just $441 million of the $7.5 billion the Coast Guard says it will cost to protect our ports from terrorist attack. And, obviously not having learned the lessons of Madrid, Spain, he's earmarked just $100 million for rail security -- about what we spend on eight typical hours in Iraq. The president has likewise shortchanged airport security: Only eight of America's 440 airports have state-of-the-art baggage screening machines.

And how's this for a kick in the teeth? The president's cutbacks have actually left fewer police and first responders on the streets today than were there on 9/11. That's right: Bush has responded to the worst attack on American soil by making us less prepared to deal with another one.

So let's recap: Under George Bush, the guy who is going to keep us safer, Osama has gone free; al-Qaida has reloaded; terrorist attacks continue unabated; nukes keep on spreading; the Muslim world is ferociously united against us (and the rest of the world isn't too crazy about us either); our ports, railways, roads and borders remain unsecured; our police, firefighters and first responders remain underequipped; and our armed forces have been stretched perilously thin.

I'm all for having the election be a referendum on which candidate will make the country safe and secure -- but only after Kerry's inner Howler has had his say.

Said Howler is on cinematic display in a powerful new documentary coming to a theater near you the day after the first -- and only? -- presidential debate. For me, the highlight of George Butler's "Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry" is the story of Kerry's courageous and inspiring efforts as a leader of the Vietnam veterans' antiwar movement.

If Kerry can make the case against Bush's tragic failures in Iraq and the war on terror with half as much urgency and moral clarity as he did against Nixon's failures in Vietnam, the American people will be able to enter the voting booth on Election Day with their eyes wide open.

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