Sure, the convention speech should have its grace notes -- a tribute to Ronald Reagan and Nancy as well as a ringing endorsement of Dick Cheney, to stop the slander of that good man. And by all means, go forward with pronouncing your accomplishments and the reforms you seek in a second term. But truly moving voters away from John Kerry and over to you rests on the simple principle of reinforcing your proven commitment to protecting our nation's security. The false debate of this political season is over Kerry's personal courage. We commend his personal courage; it's his flawed concept of national courage that makes him dangerous in the post-9/11 world. That's what you need to underline.
Don't hesitate to quote Kerry and Bill Clinton and Al Gore and Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger and Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd and Bob Graham and Hillary Clinton -- all of whom warned of the tyranny and the danger of Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. Today, they and the mainstream media are like barroom quarterbacks, engaging in the peculiar American pastime of obsessive self-criticism -- reminding me of Franklin Roosevelt's terse observation of his critics as America recovered from the Depression: "Now that these people are coming out of their storm cellars, they forget that there ever was a storm."
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Nine days before we memorialize anew the dread anniversary of Sept. 11, it is your mission to talk to us about your sense of America. Why is it that our country so willingly steps up to the ramparts to defend freedom, and what is it that separates us from failed civilizations? John F. Kennedy answered by saying: "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger." Your answer is no less forceful. Use this platform to let Americans hear it.
Thanks to your Republican predecessors, the free world endured and won the Cold War. But now, freedom faces a new hour of maximum danger, one that erupted with gut-wrenching clarity three years ago. In your inaugural address you gave us a preview of how you would confront such danger: "America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. . . . We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength." That is who we are. And you should feel no reluctance about squaring your jaw and defending the nobility of ridding the civilized world of a genocidal renegade.
Your night in Madison Square Garden will not be a moment for inconstancy, nuanced phrasings or Janus-headed indecision. It has been unfair for Kerry to ask the American people to divine whether he is the warrior he was or the antiwar warrior he was. And it is your responsibility to draw the distinction between your presidency, which is guided by a clear compass, and his candidacy, which sways with the political winds.
Finally, you, too, can tell the country that you have something "seared" in your memory: standing in the rubble of the Twin Towers with the hard hats yelling at you, "Whatever it takes."
Indeed, whatever it takes to protect America and its interests. Whatever it takes to let the nation know that you will not be broken.
Kenneth Khachigian, a California lawyer, was senior adviser and chief campaign speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, as well as a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon.
