Meanwhile, in the real world, Russia was recovering from a horrific terrorist attack that left at least 338 dead—mostly children—which put an exclamation point on the President's claim that we are fighting a global war against terrorism. At the same time, though, the U.S. military acknowledged the sobering fact that there were now "no-go" zones in Iraq, areas the U.S. had ceded to the terrorists—much of the so-called Sunni triangle, for example—which put a question mark on the President's claim that he was aggressively fighting that war. At the end of all that, the President's post-convention bounce had settled into a solid lead.

Democrats were perplexed, depressed and awestruck. How could Cheney get away with saying, in effect, that a vote for Kerry was a vote for terrorism? More to the point, how could Bush get away with, well, everything: a misspent youth, a lifetime of insider trading on the family name, a misfought war, a misleading inference that the invasion of Iraq had some vague relevance to 9/11, a presidency marked by rampant corporate cronyism at home and abroad? "If we can't beat this guy, with this record ..." a prominent Democrat said to me. He was unable to finish the sentence.

There are all sorts of theories for Bush's recent success. The Republicans are brilliant and brazen demolition experts. The Democrats play hardball at the peewee-league level. Kerry is Dukakis, after all—deadly dull, slow to respond, trapped in Democratic banality: he actually said he was for "good jobs at good wages" last week. All of which are more or less true, but peripheral. The real story is quite simple. Bush seems to believe what he says and Kerry doesn't quite.

That is not to say that the things Bush believes are true. The war in Iraq was not a necessity. It is more likely to result in regional chaos than in the "benign domino effect" of regional democracy promised by neoconservatives. But Bush truly believes—and these are admirable beliefs—in the power of "freedom" and the evil of Islamist radicalism. He is secure enough to acknowledge the possibility that he might be proved wrong. Two weeks ago, he told TIME that history would be the judge of his policies—it would take decades to sort it all out—but he was confident about the choices he had made.

Kerry seems unable, or unwilling, to confront Bush directly on this ground. Every word he utters about Iraq smacks of politics. Last week he finally said the war was "wrong," but then—in a crass, consultant-driven moment—turned the disaster into a financial transaction. Bush had spent $200 billion in Iraq that could have been spent at home. Leave aside the fact that $200 billion is a meaningless number to a nation inured to billion-dollar tags for just about everything. Leave aside the fact that most Americans would willingly have spent the money—and, more to the point, the lives—if the policy had actually made us safer. A much stronger argument was available, given the recent events in Iraq: Bush has chosen not to fight in the Sunni triangle, and the war cannot be won until he does. "You can't allow the enemy to have sanctuaries and expect to win," John McCain told me. "You have to go in and dig them out."

Kerry could have challenged Bush: "Fight the war, Mr. President, or bring the troops home." It would have been blunt, strong, simple—indeed, simplistic, just as Bush often is—but it might also have put the President on the defensive for a change. Kerry wouldn't even have to say what he would do: he could legitimately argue that would depend on the situation on the ground in January. It would also, I suspect, reflect Kerry's true feelings: that Bush has waged an incompetent war in Iraq, which he is in serious danger of losing.

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