Peggy Noonan

New Jersey is hot as a pistol. “The Sopranos,” Bruce Springsteen, Bob Torricelli, a state Supreme Court that expresses its latent creativity by taking a broad and even artistic approach to the law. New Jersey is front-page news.

You got a problem with that?

*   *   *

I happen to love New Jersey. It’s not a hard place to love. I went to high school and college there, I lived there a few years ago, and there is something poignant and moving in it. Jerseyites all know they’re part of a national punch line—“I’m from Jersey!”—and they accept it with grace and a shrug and play along with the joke if it’ll make you happy. They are unpretentious.

And Jersey is colorful. It is not a beige state like Virginia, where everything—the hair color of the girls at the mall, the hills, the buildings of Tyson’s Corner—comes in shades of brown. New Jersey has a broad palette; there’s a full ethnic mix, and people have a shock of red hair and black hair and blue eyes and green eyes and freckles and round ebony faces. The grandchildren of the immigrants of Eastern and Western Europe are there, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of black Americans who came north in the 20th century are there, and so are new immigrants from all over the world.

It has the same ethnic mix as New York but less conceit. Instead of vanity it has an accommodating brassiness. The Jersey I like best is hard-hat, not high-hat, and working-class. In its old train stations and its black steel bridges—TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES—it looks like the America of “On the Waterfront,” that masterpiece of estrangement, loyalty and love. My Jersey looks like America when America was young and tough.

Of course Jerseyites wince when you write things like this because it seems like you’re reducing the state to clichés. And that’s the politicians’ job.

*   *   *

Forty years ago, in “The Making of the President, 1960,” the big book that transformed modern political reporting, Theodore White called New Jersey the most corrupt big state in the union and said the reason was that it was the least covered by the media of the day. The great newspapers and the broadcasters with the most resources were in New York and Philadelphia. Jersey media couldn’t hold on to first-rate writers and reporters; those who showed conspicuous talent were quickly lured to the big pay and big bylines of the big cities.

I first read White’s observation when I was in high school. I thought to myself: By the time I’m grown up it will have changed. But it hasn’t entirely.

Which has been both good and bad.

Good: Jersey longer than many states got to continue as itself, unruined by outsiders. It is still distinctive and still capable, at least to some degree, of producing kids with a bona fide regional accent.

Bad: Its rich tradition of corruption continues, if not largely unchecked then only slowly checked. Bob Torricelli would not, I think, have lasted quite so long in New York.

*   *   *

Others will castigate New Jersey’s Supreme Court, political leadership and senior senator. But I want to castigate Bob Torricelli’s withdrawal speech. It was really interesting and revealing. In fact I think it was a masterpiece of political manipulation that failed.

First, what worked.

The speech was timed and presented in a way that showed savvy and discipline. Mr. Torricelli and his staff kept his decision under wraps until the day he stepped down. That morning they began to leak to media bigfoots. TV cable channels and radio stations trumpeted all day that a big announcement was coming. They did it to hold viewers, which built Mr. Torricelli’s audience. Mr. Torricelli’s people did not put out an advance text of the speech, to the extent there was one, so TV and radio producers didn’t know when to cut to the speech and show the withdrawal. So they had to run the whole speech. Mr. Torricelli made good use of the time, presenting reality as he wished it to be understood. Of course he saved the specific announcement of his withdrawal for the end of the speech, so CNN wouldn’t switch away from his remarks.

This was all really well done.

Mr. Torricelli got maximum exposure and used it to give a last will and political testament. And for a good while it was a good speech.

He began by putting himself in context. He told us “The Story of Torricelli”—the tale of a young Jersey college kid whose mother and sister put his name up for local office. He enters politics. As a young man he meets Anwar Sadat and boldly declares himself to be a future member of the United States Congress. He hungers for political greatness.

There was an elegiac feel to this part of the speech. His review of his life had height. “Thirty years have passed. I’ve loved almost every moment. I fought for everything I believed in, with all the fiber in my body. . . . I’ve had the life that I wanted.”

Then he spoke of something that isn’t spoken of enough: the meaning of a political life. The purpose of politics, he says, is to offer a stage for the betterment of man. He candidly asserts his partisanship, saying that people denigrate partisanship but that he is proud to wear the label: “I have believed in the Democratic Party all my life.”

There was something fresh in this. First, it seemed true. But also, it can be argued that in some ways we don’t have enough partisanship in modern politics. Conservatives like me see the GOP as the party more reflective of their views, and thus deserving of regard and respect. But we don’t “believe” in it. Most of my friends who are Democrats are similarly liberal, and see the Democratic Party as the vehicle of liberalism. They are loyal to it insofar as it is the party of the left. But there is something to be said for direct and declared partisanship. It keeps things clear. It helps move the ball forward, helps propel events and decisions. And it helps the center hold.

Mr. Torricelli then jumps to the day he walked into the Senate. Here he captures what is rarely expressed these days by political figures in public: the romance of the endeavor. He speaks of the old and spontaneous Senate tradition dating back 200 years in which every senator has carved his name, before he left, in the desk he used on the floor of the chamber. The day Bob Torricelli entered the Senate he lifted the lid of his new desk to see whose names were there: “Hubert Humphrey’s name, and Fulbright, and Wayne Morse.” The old liberal giants. He wanted to be among them, to be part of their tradition. “I’ve tried in my own way to add a little bit to whatever they left.”

This is good stuff too.

At this point, about halfway through the speech, I thought: People are going to say this was the speech of his career, and Jersey is going to thank him for going out with style.

*   *   *

But soon it was clear I was wrong, and I thought of what John Kennedy is supposed to have said of Richard Nixon after his bombastic bowing out of politics in 1962: “No class.”

What happened to turn Mr. Torricelli’s speech bad?

He went too far. He strained credulity and then broke it.

Why was he leaving now? Because he had concluded staying might hand the Republicans a new Senate seat. But it was immediately clear that the timing was related to new allegations that he had attempted to get a pardon from the Clinton White House for a supporter who’d given him $20,000 in illegal contributions. He asserted that withdrawal was his idea, but it quickly appeared to be more largely the result of decisions by national Democratic leaders. He suggested his mistakes were small ones when they were essential ones: the gross peddling of political influence. He suggested the people of New Jersey had been ungenerous in not forgiving him. And there were embarrassing moments such as his apology to Bill Clinton “for not having his strength.”

But the moment when the bad in the speech crystallized was when Mr. Torricelli eulogized himself.

“Somewhere today in one of several hospitals in New Jersey, some woman’s life is going to be changed because of the mammography centers that I created. . . . Somewhere tonight in Bergen County, if a woman is beaten . . . she’ll spend the night in a center that I created. . . . Somewhere today, because I changed the gun laws . . . . Some child in Bergen County will play in a park that I funded, in land that I saved. . . . Somewhere all over New Jersey, some senior citizen who doesn’t even know my name . . . will live in a senior center that I helped to build.”

I created, I funded, I saved, I did. I, I, I. And they don’t even know my name.

This is—well, where to start? It is poor political etiquette, and it is more than that.

Imagine a JFK or a Ronald Reagan talking like that. “I brought the Berlin Wall down—I did it,” “I put Castro in his place.” “I cut taxes and you didn’t even say thanks.” And now you won’t have Torricelli to kick around anymore.

Ronald Reagan and JFK would not speak that way, and not only because each had grace. They also had more understanding of the facts. Mr. Reagan knew it was the patriots and bravehearts of the world who brought the wall down.

But what is sad is that what Mr. Torricelli had to say is more and more how modern politicians talk. And because he seemed to believe what he said.

He did it, he is great, we owe him.

The kind of politicians who do this are the kind who never say they’re in politics. They always say they’re in public service.

*   *   *

As for who owes whom what: A political figure such as Bob Torricelli should attempt to lead in a certain direction. He may think it good to take taxpayer money—that is, your money, the money you worked for—and dedicate it to the building of a local day-care center. He will push for it and get his bill through. When the day-care center is built the politician will show up on the day it is opened and cut the ribbon. He will get in the papers. He will make a statement. He will appear to be effective, the kind of leader who makes a difference. People will say, My son goes to that center Torricelli built.

This isn’t bad politics. And if you agree that the day-care center should have been built, and should have been taxpayer funded, you will look kindly on him.

But he didn’t “do it., You did. You paid for it. With your taxes. And he was among its chief beneficiaries.

He should thank you.

He should thank the people who paid for the facility he wished to see built and whose existence he will claim as part of his legacy.

The facility serves his interests, in some cases in ways that are not officially sanctioned. The politician, for instance, may see to it that a contractor who is a major contributor gets the bid for the building of the facility. He may see to it that the cousins of his biggest supporter in Essex County work in the facility.

The political figure, that is, can, if he chooses, benefit big time from the building of the facility.

And we all know it. And all of us pretty much accept it. Politics is messy and imperfect. But it is grating to be told by a politician all the things he gave us.

*   *   *

Here is a rule you can rely on: The kind of politician who insists he is in “public service” and not in “politics” is the kind of politician who’ll ultimately think that his constituents owe him.

And so a speech that started out strong wound up weak, a goodbye that started out moving ended up as merely manipulative, and a testament that started out seeming candid ended sounding like mere blowhardism.

Too bad. I thought Mr. Torricelli would go out like a Jersey guy—straight, unpretentious, humble and tough.

The battle is joined, the debate begun in earnest. In the past 48 hours we have witnessed Bush vs. Daschle, Hitchens vs. Cockburn, Democrats vs. Republicans, The American Conservative vs. The Weekly Standard and National Review, paleocons vs. neocons, compassionate conservatives vs. the left. In New York we debate whether strong criticism of Israeli policy is prima facie evidence of anti-Semitism. In Washington it’s two questions: Who owns conservatism, and is the modern left more than a collection of depressives, America-lasters and anti-Semites?

The background music to all this has underscored the drama of the moment: It is the plaintive wilderness fiddle of PBS’s “The Civil War,” repeated each night all week. You can walk the dog in the evening in the upscale neighborhoods of the East and hear the fiddle’s lonely tune coming from the screened windows of neighbor after neighbor. It’s what you hear as you walk along, wondering how the question of war will be resolved.

We wanted interesting lives, and we got them.

*   *   *

What is at issue as we discuss war on Iraq? The safety of America, of untold numbers of people, the position of our country in the Mideast and elsewhere—and that’s just the beginning. The debate has already become personal. This one is “a repulsive character,” that one is “another middle-aged porker of the right.” Personal viciousness is probably inevitable, but this fight should be serious.

It should be epochal.

One question has already been settled. The war will be the great issue of the 2002 elections. Some Democrats says this is Karl Rove’s plan to restrict the national conversation to foreign policy, where Republicans are traditionally strong, and away from the economy. Maybe that is Mr. Rove’s plan, and if it is, it’s not without logic—what is more important than war?

But as plans go it’s not without danger. Opponents of the war will now gather their forces, their resources, their arguments and data. They’ll be all over trying to make their case. They’ll have no trouble being heard.

So far they’ve not done well. They have argued that there are grave risks to action, but this is not an argument. There are grave risks to inaction, too. They have argued that America will have a hard time establishing a new Iraqi government. Well, yes. That doesn’t mean it must not or cannot be attempted.

More is needed from the opposition.

The Bush administration says Saddam Hussein is sinister and vicious. Let me, with confidence and admitted presumption, assert on behalf of the majority of Americans: We believe it. Saddam has used poison gas, has already invaded two neighboring countries, has murdered people in the coldest of blood. The administration says Saddam is gathering weapons of mass destruction, and again: We believe it. There is plenty of evidence, and there is also proof. They say he is pursuing nuclear arms. Again: We believe it. He would.

The opponents of war, it seems to me, must face the questions that flow from what we know.

If you know Saddam is wicked, know he’s gathering weapons of mass murder, know madmen are likely to ultimately use the weapons they stockpile, and know, finally, that he wishes America ill, then why not move against him? And why not now? Wouldn’t inaction be irresponsible?

*   *   *

But the administration still has questions to face, too. Among them: What has stopped Saddam from using the weapons he has, and has had for some time? Isn’t it deterrence—the sure knowledge that if he launches missiles weighted with weapons of mass murder he can wave goodbye to Baghdad, to his own life and those of many, many of his countrymen? The era of Saddam the Great would end.

If we move against Saddam now, this inhibiting incentive is lessened or removed. What will stop Saddam from going out in a great blaze of “glory”? He can kill millions.

Why is deterrence no longer operable?

The Democrats on Capitol Hill have so far failed to mount a principled, coherent opposition. I am not shocked by this, are you? One senses they are looking at the whole question merely as a matter of popular positioning: Will they like me if I say take out Saddam? Will they get mad at me if we try to take him out and it’s a disaster? Will they like me if I say there’s no reason to go to war? Have I focus-grouped this? Such unseriousness is potentially deeply destructive. It is certainly irresponsible. And here’s the funny thing: If some Democrat stood up and spoke thoughtfully and without regard for political consequences about what is right for us to do, he’d likely garner enhanced respect and heightened standing. He’d seem taller than his colleagues. At any rate, more than usual, I am missing Pat Moynihan and Sam Nunn.

Members of the administration, on the other hand, seem lately almost inebriated with a sense of mission. And maybe that’s inevitable when the stakes are high and you’re sure you’re right. But in off-the-cuff remarks and unprepared moments the president and some of his men often seem to have missing within them a sense of the tragic. Which is odd because we’re talking about war, after all. Leaders can’t lead by moping, but a certain, well, solemnity, I suppose, might be well received by many of us.

*   *   *

At any rate, the battle is joined. It will be waged over the next six weeks. It is going to be hot. It is going to dominate public discourse. This is good. We need and deserve a debate that is worthy of the moment, and worthy of the people—the millions of them—who could be affected by America’s decision one way or another.

And by the way, it is not bad for a critical world to see how a great democracy, the world’s oldest, goes about resolving questions of the utmost gravity. This is a good time to remind them who, and what, we are.

The story is over. It’s yesterday’s headline.

Everyone involved has begun to recede back into normal life insofar as they had normal lives. But before it becomes just another strange memory of 2002, a worthy wave goodbye.

Eunice Stone of Georgia is reportedly recovering from the chest pains that led her to check herself into a local hospital. The diagnosis was stress. The three young Muslim men with whom she had her now-famous encounter have reportedly announced they will not sue her, which is certainly gracious of them.

I wasn’t there, but I listened to everyone who spoke of it and watched the story closely. And it’s not hard to imagine what probably happened that day at Shoney’s.

Three young Mulsim men walk into the middle-class chain restaurant in a Georgia town. They are dressed in what customer Eunice Stone apparently understood to be Mideastern dress. As for Sikh, Saudi, whatever, she probably didn’t know. She probably knew as much about Muslim culture as the three young Muslim men knew about American Indian culture. Which is to say: probably nothing.

So they’re all in a small southern town, at a local chain restaurant, and when the three young Muslim males walk in, the locals—Southerners, Americans, neighbors—look at them. Maybe hard. Maybe up and down. Who are those guys?

And here we might ask: Who are the Southerners? They are likely, being Southerners, Americans who take a rather protective and even loving interest in their country. They are painfully aware that America had, just one year before, been brutally attacked by groups of people who were young Muslim males. They left 3,000 dead—innocent people, civilians, young people just starting out. It grieved a great country. It grieved them.

The Southerners know, for they keep a close eye on the news, that there are now in our country cells of young Muslim males loyal not to the United States but to the grievances and leadership of terror masters. They mean us ill. A bunch of men allegedly meeting this description were arrested last week in Buffalo, N.Y. More are said to be lying low in Michigan, Florida, New Jersey and other states. They move among us with confidence, taking advantage of the freedoms we guarantee, and taking advantage too of our cultural reluctance to jump to conclusions based on a person’s look or sex or ethnicity.

*   *   *

So the Southerners are eyeballing the young Muslim males. Maybe these guys are bad guys. They allow themselves to think this in part because one of the things Americans regret most since Sept. 11 2001 is their lack of suspicion. We’re all very live-and-let-live. Before Sept. 11, young Muslim males could tell someone in passing that soon those towers in New York will go boom. And fearing to offend, fearing to hurt the feelings of another person, we’d let it pass. We’d mind our business, give them the benefit of the doubt.

And now we wish we’d been less friendly, less trusting, less lazy or frightened. We wish we’d been skeptical. Hell, we’re the only nation on earth that is now nostalgic for paranoia.

But it’s the anniversary of Sept. 11, and now we’re trying to be alert, to look out for things.

So the Southerners eyeball the young Muslim males, and the young Muslim males feel the vibe.

And they don’t like it. They resent it.

Here they had two clear choices: Try to understand the emotions of the people around them—people who’ve been bruised, who’ve seen their country take a roundhouse right from history—and choose to be polite and friendly. The young Muslim males could smile and nod, for instance. This probably would have gone far in making progress between peoples, for one thing we’ve all read about the terrorists of Sept. 11 is that they never bothered to be nice. They tended to treat the Americans with whom they interacted with Sullen Dead Face—the inexpressive look young men put on so it will be hard for you to read them. Because they don’t want to be read. Because they want to convey an air of some menace.

They could have introduced themselves to the waitress, mentioned they’re on their way to medical school. They could have been quiet, minded their business, chatted softly.

But they didn’t bother to be nice. They wanted things on their terms.

So they took option two.

They sensed the questioning within the gazes, and they thought it would be amusing to show these stupid and uneducated Southern people, these dumb crackers, these yokels, who was boss. You think we’re bad guys? We’ll show you bad guys.

And so one of them or a few of them said the things Eunice Stone says she overheard. Talk about explosions, references to Sept. 11, talk about how Sept. 13 will be even bigger.

And Ms. Stone, alarmed, put herself on the line. She called the police and told them what she’d heard. She was interviewed by them repeatedly and exhaustively. She did everything she could to see that the young Muslim males were stopped.

The young Muslim males took off in their cars, driving south. They were stopped in Florida, where police closed a highway for an entire day as robots searched their car. The young Muslim men, the police said, were not entirely cooperative. They had attitude. Certainly in their interviews after they were released, after nothing was found in their cars, they displayed plenty of attitude. They were an unsympathetic bunch, in both ways. They showed scant sympathy for those they’d inconvenienced and alarmed, and they also inspired no sympathy for their plight. Later, a sister of one of the young men went on CNN to declare that this was the South, and you know how the South is: “It has a reputation of racism.”

I thought, as I watched this: It has a reputation for patriotism, too. It’s why Southern men and women join the armed forces in such high numbers, and why, if the sister were ever attacked by a terrorist, they’d risk their lives to save her sorry, sanctimonious little . . . Well, as I watched I got a little mad.

The South’s reputation for patriotism may be why Eunice Stone put herself on the line, and wound up overwhelmed by insults and unwanted fame, in the hospital, and ultimately being patronized—We won’t sue you—by the three young Muslim males.

*   *   *

But they were right about one thing, and it’s a big thing. This really does appear to have been a story about bigotry.

There was someone who was prejudiced, who made assumptions based on newspaper reports and urban legends; there was someone who didn’t like “the other” and assumed bad things about them; there was someone who was insensitive, lacking in compassion and aggressive.

And it wasn’t Eunice Stone. It was the three young Muslim males, the young would-be doctors, the college-educated men, who thought they’d have some fun with their social, intellectual and moral inferiors.

*   *   *

And now it’s over. The hospital they said they were on their way to visit for training told them to go elsewhere. Good hospital. Florida’s Gov. Jeb Bush privately called Ms. Stone and told her he thought she’d done the right thing. Good governor. The media, which covered the story wall to wall, did not indulge in a reflexive “poor minority person is abused by bullying whites” narrative. They questioned the men closely, and sometimes sharply. And Ms. Stone is said to be recuperating at home. May she recover fully, quickly and with the knowledge that the vast majority of Americans understand what she did and why, and appreciate it.

As for the three Muslim males, they plan to continue their studies. Perhaps they could take a course in bias reduction. It would be nice if they were assigned a paper that answers the question: “Why might a people who had just been attacked by young Muslim males feel a heightened sensitivity and awareness in the presence of young Muslim males? Discuss.”

Perhaps they could learn from Hippocrates, the father of medicine, whose advice to young doctors was timeless and is applicable here: “First, do no harm.”

George W. Bush is back, big time. In fact with a roar.

He seemed to lie low this summer, but Wednesday he re-emerged to lead the nation and stand for all it has been through this year. He spoke of mourning and memory, of our purpose and our plans. He was inspiriting.

Did you see him with the families of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, and then with the mourners in New York, at Ground Zero? He was a genuine comfort. A genuine one. He understood it was about them and not him, and in each case he gave the families what they signaled they needed. If they wanted to talk he stopped and talked; when they wanted to hug him and weep, he took them in his arms. He was there to serve, to give and to represent. Even now, two years after the previous president, it is still a relief—an enormous relief—to have a president who doesn’t make every event a sickness-tinged drama in which he simulates emotions he does not feel and draws the cameras with the heat of his need, his persona, his never-sated ego. Smarmy bathos is gone. Thanks again, God.

But let’s go to yesterday and Mr. Bush’s speech at the U.N. It was big and it was shrewd in its rhetorical approach. The U.N. expected Mr. Bush to make the case for an invasion of Iraq based on Saddam’s threat to the security of the United States. Mr. Bush didn’t do that. Saddam he said, as if noting the obvious, “has made the case against himself.” Saddam has brazenly and consistently defied the United Nations. Saddam endangers the peace the U.N. member states so understandably desire. Saddam threatens them. But it’s all right: The United States will come to the U.N.’s aid and protect its member states from Saddam.

It was something. And it left the administration’s foes in the audience looking, at the end, as if they were thinking: Man, how do I knock this one down?

*   *   *

Kofi Annan, it seemed to me, did Mr. Bush a favor when he spoke first, and with great gravity. Mr. Annan was expected to voice strong opposition to independent American action on Iraq, but that was not quite his subject. His subject: regional threats to world peace. Nothing he said was objectionable, and soon enough he was speaking of Saddam’s record of defiance of past U.N. resolutions. He did not explicitly or even implicitly refute what he knew of Bush administration thinking on Iraq. He called for a peaceful resolution to the problem, through United Nations offices.

But it was Mr. Annan’s gravity, his moral seriousness, that provided a platform for the words of the visiting American president.

This is what Mr. Bush said: We in the United Nations have an “urgent duty” to protect lives. The peace of the world must not be disturbed by “the will and the wickedness of any one man.” Yes, our common security is threatened by regional conflicts, but an even greater threat is “outlaw groups and regimes,” those in terror camps and terror cells who wish to fulfill “mad ambitions.” And they will, if Iraq supplies them with the weapons of mass destruction they so desire.

We did not “appease” Iraq when it unlawfully moved against Kuwait in 1990. The U.S., with the U.N., forced Saddam back. He accepted defeat in clear agreements. He has since broken “every pledge.” He promised to stop abusing his people, but he uses “summary execution and torture” against them. “Repression is all pervasive.” He is brutal and sadistic; his means of repression is “a totalitarian state.”

Saddam promised to return prisoners of war from the Gulf War. “He broke his promise.” He is in “direct defiance” of a series of U.N. directives. Saddam said he would stop encouraging terrorism—he didn’t. He said he would stop attempting to assassinate international foes—he hasn’t. He agreed to destroy his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and not develop new ones. “Iraq has broken every aspect of this fundamental pledge.”

The Iraqi “regime” (never “government” in this speech) is developing chemical weapons, and has admitted to a crash nuclear weapons program. It has the infrastructure to build nuclear weapons. If Saddam gets fissile material, he will have them in a year. “There is little doubt about his appetite” for them. He is building long range missiles, and “madly” buying arms for “mad ends.”

Mr. Bush told the U.N.: You know Saddam has defied all requests for cooperation and information, because you have denounced his behavior in the past, and you were right to denounce it.

“The history, the logic and the facts lead to one conclusion,” Mr. Bush said. “Saddam Hussein’s regime is a grave and gathering danger.”

Will the U.N. “gamble” the lives of “millions” on mere hopes that Saddam will change? Must we wait to discover he has nuclear weapons “the day he uses one”?

Saddam has given you nothing but “a decade of defiance”; he is a threat to U.N. authority and standing.

If Iraq wants peace, it will reveal and destroy its weapons of mass destruction, it will renounce terrorism, it will refrain from repression, it will release all Gulf War prisoners.

America will work with the U.N. Security Council on the question of Iraq. But “action will be unavoidable” if Iraq does not change. And if it does not, the regime, which has already “lost its legitimacy,” will “lose its power.”

Mr. Bush gave no timetable, but the very force of his words said: Act now, it will be worse if you wait. He did not refer to any possible U.N. actions, such as new demands for weapons inspections or agreements. He left the subject open, but in a way that challenged the U.N. to come up with something as strong as the speech.

And his message was clear. If the U.N. does not feel it can stand up for the very values it represents and was created to advance, the United States itself will step in to defend them for it.

*   *   *

This was a speech that gave the world a lot to chew on, ponder and face. It was a speech that piled fact upon fact, like a legal dossier. It is a speech that, through its very specificity, requires that those who disagree with Mr. Bush, specifically respond to the facts, and either counter them persuasively or let them stand. It is a speech that will be reprinted in newspapers throughout the world. It is a speech that with clarity and logic makes clear Mr. Bush’s commitment without opening him to charges of cowboyism.

And I think it was a speech that is going to move this story forward. All the world now will have to respond to the text. We will learn much from their responses.

We have already learned something of the unity of Mr. Bush’s said-to-be-fractious cabinet. Leading the applause for the president and sitting most prominently in the U.S. delegation was the secretary of state, Colin Powell, the famous dove. He didn’t look unhappy. One wonders how his support of the speech was secured; one suspects it has to do with the fact that Mr. Bush gave no timetable for action, and left open the possibility of U.N. attempts to improve the situation.

*   *   *

Chris Matthews asked last night if Mr. Bush was “a cowboy.” He is not. Every Republican president who takes stark and independent American action in the world is called a cowboy, and it’s not the worst thing you could be called. Mr. Bush obviously wants and would be grateful for international support. The sentiment of nations is important. His father demonstrated this when he created the great Gulf War coalition.

But George W. Bush is by nature and habit of mind an American exceptionalist. (In this, and in being called a cowboy, he is like Ronald Reagan.) Mr. Bush believes America is different among nations, invented on the basis of what is, literally, a heavenly idea: God created all men equal, and they must therefore move through the world, through life, with equal rights. We are uniquely blessed, uniquely situated between the oceans, uniquely the natural home of those born elsewhere who yearn to be free. And so we have special responsibilities, and a special role: We lead, and for the good of the world.

Mr. Bush’s leadership this past year has reflected a fully absorbed, and perhaps romantically held, commitment to this ideal. His speech to the U.N. underscored it.

Do I think he “made the case” for U.S. action against Iraq? I think he made a first and serious one but not the final one; I think his words and approach showed an appropriate respect for the opinion of mankind; I think more will, and should, follow. I think this story has not reached its crisis. Something tells me Saddam himself will continue to make the case against his regime. Something tells me that in the end, most all of us are going to give the American president the benefit of the doubts we hold, and back him. Something tells me that in the end we’ll be glad we did, and so will the members of the U.N.

Rudy Giuliani said the other day that he wasn’t absolutely sure the next morning, on Sept. 12, that the sun would actually come up. When it did, he was grateful. And so we are today, as we mark the anniversary of the day that changed our lives.

We are all busy remembering. A friend in Washington e-mails in the middle of the night yesterday: She cannot sleep because jets are roaring overhead, and because this is the anniversary of the last time she talked to Barbara Olson. Another e-mail, from an acquaintance: “Last year this time we were comforting eachother in instant messages.” Most everyone is getting and sending these messages.

I thought it would be flatter, this formal time of remembering, and not so authentic. Days that are supposed to be rich in meaning often aren’t. But people seem to be vividly re-feeling what they experienced a year ago, and being caught unaware, mugged by a memory. Last week a friend was telling me where he was, and in the middle of the telling a sob rose from nowhere and cut off his words. Yesterday on CNN Rosalynn Carter seemed taken aback by welling tears when she was asked how she had explained terrible events to her children when they were young. She told them, she said, that bad times didn’t mean God wasn’t there. Bad times meant God was weeping too.

Washington is marking this day with patriotism and a certain martial dignity. New York is approaching the anniversary with solemnity and respect. We are immersing ourselves in the trauma to free ourselves of the preoccupation. The great words of great presidents will be read, and some school children will hear the Gettysburg Address and the preamble to the Constitution for the first time.

A company of bagpipers will cross the Brooklyn Bridge, retracing the route of the hardy firemen of Brooklyn who roared across the bridge toward Manhattan a year ago this morning. Sirens blaring, they craned their necks to see the smoking ruins of the place where they would make their stand. For six months after that day, bagpipes were the sound of New York in mourning. They were played at all the funerals. None of us in New York will ever hear their rich and lonely wail in the same way again.

*   *   *

What we are doing is taking a last hard and heartbreaking look at what happened last year. In time we will put the memories away, pack them away in a box with a pair of old gloves, and a citation and a badge, and some clippings and pictures. This is what Emily Dickinson called “the sweeping up the heart.” She said it was “the solemnest of industries enacted upon earth.”

But before we put it all away, there is a story to remember. There was a glittering city, the greatest in the history of man, a place of wild creativity, of getting, grabbing and selling, of bustle and yearning and greed. It was brutally attacked by a band of primitives. The city reeled. We knew what to expect: The selfish, heartless city-dwellers would trample children in their path as they raced for safety, they’d fight for the lifeboats like the wealthy on the Titanic.

It didn’t happen. It wasn’t that way at all. They were better than they knew! They saved each other—they ran to each other’s aid, they died comforting strangers.

Then the capital city was attacked, and there too goodness broke out. And sleeping boomers on planes came awake and charged the cockpit to keep the plane from hitting the home of the American president.

And then the mighty nation hit back at the primitives, and hit again.

This is, truly, some story. This is not a terrible thing to have to tell our children. It is a warm story. But now a certain coldness is in order.

*   *   *

The sun rises tomorrow on the new era, the post-9/11-trauma era. We will make our way through the next year without the wild emotional force of 9/11 pushing us forward. We can be cool now, and deadly if need be.

This can be the year when we find Osama bin Laden. This, the next 12 months, can be when we deal the death blow to the Taliban, for this drama will not even begin to end until we have laid Osama and Osama-ism low. This is one case in which justice and vengeance are intertwined.

This is the year when the president and his advisors will or will not make the case, as they say, on Iraq. The president thinks a key part of the war on terror will be moving against Saddam Hussein and liberating Iraq from his heavy hand. But if Mr. Bush is to make the case it will not be with emotional rhetoric, with singing phrases, with high oratory. It will not, in this coming cooler time, be made with references to evil ones. All of that was good, excellent and Bushian the past passionate year. But now Mr. Bush should think in terms of Sgt. Joe Friday. “Just the facts, ma’am.”

“Saddam is evil” is not enough. A number of people are evil, and some are even our friends. “Saddam has weapons of mass destruction” is not enough. A number of countries do. What the people need now is hard data that demonstrate conclusively that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction which he is readying to use on the people of the U.S. or the people of the West.

If Mr. Bush has a good case, he will make it and the people will back him. If he does not, he will not convince the American people that blood and treasure must go to this endeavor. The people must believe, as Mr. Bush does, that their children are endangered. There was a time—I think it was Sept. 10, 2001—that Americans may not have been able to accept such an assertion. That time has passed.

*   *   *

There’s another area where coldness is called for. The folly of what is happening to our airline industry is due to a wet and weepy conception of what is fair. People are afraid to fly because they see what a politically correct joke our airline security is. Searching for every last toenail clipper, forcing 85-year-old people with walkers to stand spread-eagled as some oafish wand-wielder in a blue jacket humiliates them—this is absurd and cowardly. Let’s get coldly serious: Arm the pilots, fortify cockpits, man flights with marshals, and profile passengers. We don’t have a transportation secretary who is willing to do these things. Someday when something terrible happens we’ll wish we did. Why not coldly remove Norman Mineta now?

Warm tears, honest remembrances, passionate tributes, giving credit where it’s due, absorbing 9/11, teaching our children what it meant and means: These are good things. And a little coldness starting at sunrise tomorrow: That will be good too.

Everyone here now asks, “Where will you be?” They don’t say “on Sept. 11.” They don’t have to. Everyone knows. Most everyone has a plan. Some people are leaving town. They just don’t want to go through it again, through the nonstop TV and the weeping families and the memory of the smoke and the sound and the sight of it all. A lot of people are staying, of course. Those who are working, or going to school; those who can’t leave, or won’t. I’m one of the latter. I feel a kind of loyalty to that day, and those who suffered through it, and I’m not leaving.

So on Wednesday, on Sept. 11, 2002, I plan to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge before dawn. I will, as I pass under its two heavy stone towers—the original twin towers of downtown Manhattan, and still the most beautiful—reach out my hand and touch them lightly, as you would the arm of an old friend.

On the Manhattan side of the bridge I will make my way to Ground Zero, and watch the sun come up at dawn. I don’t know why. I just want to see the new beginning of a new day at the place that was the World Trade Center. I want to see the sun rise and light the skyscrapers all around it.

I will carry in my pocket a little metal cross about two inches high, and a little metal heart the same size. They’re twisted and bear burn marks, like pots left too long on the stove.

*   *   *

One night after Sept. 11 I went to a church near the site. I poured coffee for construction workers and Con Ed guys on the overnight shift. A construction worker who’d been at the site since Sept. 11, first trying to find and save people, then trying to clean up, walked up to me. He was a big man in work clothes with a hardhat. He looked beat. He told me he had read my columns, and he told me he’d heard I was here, pouring coffee. He said, “I have something for you.” And he pulled from a soft brown paper bag the little cross and the little heart. He had cut them from a beam that held up one of the towers.

To me they were like an old bullet pulled from the ground of Gettysburg, a treasure of history. When people come to my house and see them on the wall, they’re always silent after I tell the story.

I’m going to bring them with me, back to where they came from, on Sept. 11. I’ll probably look at where the towers used to be and think, “The buildings were here. A year ago today they were here. And then they became the cross and the heart.”

*   *   *

A year ago on Sept. 11 it was so beautiful, just the most beautiful day. The school year had just started, and kids downtown were being walked to class. They heard the first plane. They were walking on the sidewalk when the shadow of the plane passed over them.

Where would we be if the shadow hadn’t come, if 8:46 a.m. that day had not happened? Where would we be if the whole day had been as peaceful as its start?

We’d be where we were on Sept. 10, 2001.

On Sept. 10, 2001 we were, a lot of us, immersed in a national culture—a big, vivid, full-network, broadband, opens-soon-at-a-theater-near-you culture—that allowed us to live knee deep in distraction. What’s on tonight, who’s pitching, when are The Sopranos back, who won, when does the sale start? There was nothing inherently wrong in this—fun is part of life, or should be, and entertainment, art and sports are worthy endeavors. But for a lot of us our emphasis was off. We weren’t paying attention to core things, essential things, first things. We were staring at the peripheral, missing the big picture.

And then Sept. 11 came. The demonic cloud chased modernity down the street. It chased businessmen down the tall and narrow pathways of downtown Manhattan, a city that lives on the periphery of the continent but is at the core of its commercial life, its art, its hedonism and hipness, its focused and full-throttled pursuit of the tangential.

Thousands died. The buildings disappeared. And were transmuted into the cross and the heart.

*   *   *

The heart, to me, stands for the explosion of human sympathy, kindness, forgivingness and generosity that came from the people of our city starting at 8:46 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s been—and here I think, oddly, not of an American word but of the highest accolade used by an old friend from New Zealand—brilliant. Brilliant and shining. You all know the stories—the friendliness on the streets, the helpfulness to strangers, the millions of volunteers, the money given, the hands held.

The cross stands for a renewed sense of the centrality of the spiritual in our lives. People say it was fleeting, but I don’t think so, and I base this simply on my interactions with friends, family and acquaintances who are New Yorkers. Something big happened here. The spiritual was reborn. It started with the spontaneous shrines that filled the city sidewalks last September and it has continued with a greater sense of individual pondering. People are thinking about God. I believe I have witnessed from so many people an enhanced sense of the sacredness of ordinary things, and a greater ability to see grace at work in the lives of others, and ourselves.

This week Newsweek had the story of the boy in the red bandana. He was a young man in the north tower who didn’t think first of his own safety after the planes hit, but tried to help strangers. He pointed them to exits in the smoky corridors, led them down the stairs, carried a woman on his back. He was last seen going up the stairs as others walked down. They found out later who he was, a 24-year-old equities trader. Life is rich and unknowable: You don’t know when you’ll accidentally bump into hell, you don’t know what angel you might meet there.

*   *   *

“He was last seen going up the stairs.” Those are famous words here now. Usually we say it about the firemen. It’s going to be a long time before we get used to the idea that 343 of them lost their lives that day. Or rather gave them.

Those 343—they were mostly tough Catholic men with soft hearts from the outer boroughs. They were Italians and Irish and Poles and Puerto Ricans, and they lined up for absolution, received a blessing and ran into the buildings lugging their gear. Their funerals were at Our Lady Queen of Peace, and St. Rose of Lima Church. And sometimes at the funerals they played an old ‘70s song whose title you’ll never hear the same way again: “Stairway to Heaven.”

The other day I got a letter from the mother of Michael Dermott Mullan, Ladder 12, Engine 3, 19th Chelsea. He was a graduate of Holy Cross High School, a registered nurse attending Hunter College School of Nursing, a captain in the U.S. Army Reserves stationed at Fort Totten, and a New York City fireman. He must have been some guy, Michael Mullen. His mother wanted all of us to know who he was. She wrote, “He was dedicated to the well being and protection of his fellow man.” She wrote, “He was second generation Irish by way of County Tipperary, County Down and County Kerry.” She wrote, “He loved his God, his Country, his family and his city.”

Michael Mullan called from his truck on the way to the Trade Center the morning of the attacks. “He called to tell us, ‘I love you. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.’ Michael never said goodbye—it wasn’t a part of him to think goodbye, he would always say, ‘See you later,’ or ‘Take care.’ But that fateful day he said goodbye to his family.” His body was found on Oct. 7. Then the Mullan family found out about his last hours. After Michael called home he bowed his head and, with a friend on the rig, prayed. Michael and his crew went to the Marriott Hotel, next to the Trade Center. It had been badly damaged, and later collapsed. They made their way to the upper floors and then were ordered out by their lieutenant. The way was blocked, but they found a path down. Then word came there were two firemen on a higher floor who couldn’t find a way down. “Michael’s last spoken words,” his mother said, “were, ‘I’ll go back and get them.’ ”

He was probably last seen going up the stairs. He was a man of the heart and the cross.

*   *   *

And the flag. For that was the other things that re-emerged, the explosion of America-love.

We had been losing it as a society, and for a long time.

The immigrants of a century ago arrived to a flag flying culture. They were told that they were investing their lives, their futures, their unseen grandchildren in something high and good and decent. Free speech was here, the free practice of religion, democracy, the ballot, free markets—everyone, from the brilliant and altruistic to the bright and merely greedy, could get in on the great bazaar, and make his way. What a country—all that freedom and the streets were paved with gold.

They were taught to love America by the culture all around them—the penny newspapers, George M. Cohan, John Philip Sousa, the nascent movie industry, the stage, the schools—taught a burly America-love.

Which was good. Because when you don’t love something you lose it.

We were losing it. But now the flags are out again, and loving America isn’t considered a faux pas, or evidence of limited intellect. The thing now is to see it doesn’t degenerate into mere conceit: “We’re No. 1, we have the best tanks.” That’s triumphalism. Patriotism is solid and grounded; it holds up the ideal of a nation founded on the equality of men; it has to do with founding documents, guaranteed freedoms, clear rights, stated responsibilities. That’s what the flag stands for.

It’s certainly how Michael Mullan must have seen it. And the boy in the red bandana, too.

And that in the end is my Sept. 11, a trauma that was transmuted into a heart and a cross and a flag. Each expressing a facet of a great and fabled people who are still, one year after, the hope of the world.

This is written for you to read when you come back from vacation, either this weekend or next week if that applies. So just park it if you like, and come back.

I want only to say: Welcome back.

Maybe you are tired, and need a vacation from your vacation. Or maybe you’re a little sad that vacation is over—it was so wonderful, like a gift. Or maybe you feel a little disheartened—you planned for months and arrived at the hotel and it rained and the kids fussed and work called and nothing was really . . . peaceful. And that’s what you wanted, peace, harmony and love.

But: Welcome back. Put down your bags. Uncrick your neck. Wonderful things are about to happen.

*   *   *

I have no particular standing to welcome you but someone should, and I have nominated me.

I have been home in Brooklyn the past few weeks. I have been keeping the city safe for you. So has Tomas, who works in the Garden of Eden food shop in Brooklyn Heights. He is from Mexico. He did not have a vacation this summer. He worked, stocking produce and removing products that approached their expiration date. When I talked to him he was spraying the lettuce with water so it would look fresh and bright. He was in a happy mood, and so was I. We have been preparing the city for your return and have had a good time doing it. Everything has been slow and non-intense. Now, as you return, everything will pick up. We’re glad. We missed you.

*   *   *

So: You just got home from the beach, or the lake, or your aunt’s guest house outside Knoxville, Tennessee.

You unlock the front door, walk into the living room and put down your stuff, your gear—dirty clothes, boogie boards, portable CD players, a backpack full of books, a bag of corn.

You open the windows, put on the air conditioner, get the air moving. The house smells unlived in. It smells the way empty houses smell when the real estate agent unlocks the door.

You’ll cook something soon and the house will get back its people live here smell.

You pick up the mail. Bills, circulars, a post card from Paris. Sale day at JC Penney. School supplies at Tarjay.

Realize: It is the beginning of the year. Not the end, but the beginning. This is when school starts. It’s when college begins. It’s when the new secretary begins work, and when the new vice president at the bank takes over Gil’s old office.

It’s when you return to a new year.

It’s when the latest first impressions you get to make will be made. It’s when the government returns, the network anchors return. They will need news. The government will supply it.

It’s when the new leather of shoes smells fresh. You’ll shop for loafers for the kids tomorrow and pick up one and smell it and every autumn of your life will come back—every autumn. You will half swoon.

Autumn is the beginning of everything.

*   *   *

Are you ready to begin again? It takes a bit of courage on some level, doesn’t it?

Don’t worry. No one else is ready either. You don’t have to be. Autumn just comes one night at 3:11 a.m., and you step into it in the morning and are in it and running.

This year the thought of autumn fills me with some kind of longing. On the days now that it’s cooler than 80 degrees in New York I walk with a spring in my step. I miss autumn, my favorite time of year, and the tenderest time in New York. The parks, never more beautiful than they have been the past few years, are at their most beautiful. The Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum hang big colorful sheets with the names of upcoming shows from their facades. They billow like sails. They move in the breeze. When the wind is high you can stand under them and hear them snap. All the outdoor vegetable and fruit stands have new bounty and color. All the kids are rushing to school in their very newest faded jeans and distressed cotton shirts.

We haven’t had an autumn in New York in two years. We lost last September last year. It was the summer of ‘01, and then before the leaves could turn it was the trauma of ‘01, and we woke up six months later, in the spring. So all those tender leaves—they didn’t register. I would walk along the streets and think of the old song from The Fantasticks: “Try to remember the kind of September when life was an ember about to billow.” It was sad here as summer elided into winter.

But this year we will have autumn, and we will notice it. This is good.

*   *   *

We will of course mark Sept. 11. A big question people here ask is: Will the non-stop all-network Sept. 11 memorials on TV do harm or good? Is it wallowing? Do we need closure? I think for those fully mature, fully stable people who have successfully absorbed the past year, the TV stuff won’t hurt. And for those feeling deep wounds and damage, for those who have not so far successfully absorbed, the memorials may help. In any case they’ll happen, and we’ll watch them.

*   *   *

The other day I walked by Saint Vincent’s Hospital in downtown Manhattan and thought, as I always do when I walk by: This is where they waited for the wounded. The interns and nurses waited outside right here with gurneys for patients who didn’t come. Because so few people were “wounded.” The three thousand were dead. What happened to them? They were exploded into air. They became a cloud. We breathed them in.

None of us here in New York will ever “get over it,” as they say. But most of us have gotten over it. We continued our lives and enjoy them, and if you go to any restaurant in the five boroughs there will be laughing and flirting and people joking and being intelligent and enjoying the food.

*   *   *

The other day I had lunch with two men who run a company that lost 61 people on Sept. 11. Sixty one out of less than 300! They suffered. They were on the 84th floor of Tower Two. A wing from the second plane probably tore into their floor. They’re having a memorial on Sept. 11 and they asked me to speak. I don’t know what I’ll say. No one, really, knows what to say that day. That’s why the politicians and governmental leaders will be reading the Gettysburg Address.

We talked at lunch about what that day had been for them. One, Brian, who had been an office fire marshal, had helped a man trapped under debris and then, he still doesn’t know why, walked down and out of the tower instead of up. He lived. So did the man he helped from the debris. The only person Brian saw walking up in the tower as he was walking down from the 84th floor was a co-worker named Jose. Jose worked in plant management and security. He had a walkie talkie in his hand. He was going up the stairs because he’d heard from another co-worker who was trapped above. He went up to find and help the trapped co-worker. Jose died, and so did the man he was going to help.

A week later Brian had a dream. He dreamt that he was sleeping soundly in his bed when he woke and saw Jose standing at the foot of the bed, dressed in a kind of billowing white shirt, or gown, and he was fine, and he wanted Brian to know it was all all right. Brian was astonished in the dream, and blinked his eyes wide. Then he awoke for real, blinking his eyes wide, with his head off the pillow and tilted forward, as it would have been if he had really been looking at a man standing at the foot of his bed.

Classic wish fulfillment. Or something else.

I asked him what he thought it meant.

“That Jose is all right,” Brian said. “That they’re all fine, all those who died. And that we’ll be fine too.”

*   *   *

People here keep asking each other if they’ve changed since Sept. 11. I say I think I’ve just become more so. Everything is provisional and tentative. Everything is infused with grace. Life can turn on a dime. There are levels of mystery we don’t understand. Life is good in and of itself. These to me are facts that, once you have absorbed them, leave you moving on, and appreciating the moment you’re in, and looking forward to steak and Merlot and the brightness of friends.

*   *   *

Life is here.

It is a new year.

Breathe in that new shoe leather, get those new school supplies, make that pie, rearrange those clothes, get out those suits, retire those sandals, line up those pencils, make that appointment, call that meeting, start that diet, gas up the car. It is good to be alive. Sleep good tonight, and deep. Tomorrow you just might step into autumn, which is the beginning of everything.

The Gore-Lieberman feud is a minor political classic, something to read the newspaper for in this so-far-quiet August. The Republicans are enjoying it because it’s Democrats fighting. Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman are enjoying it because everyone’s watching them, which underscores their view that they’re the two most interesting men in the party. And the other Democrats who are thinking of getting in the ring like it because Mr. Gore may bloody Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Lieberman may bruise Mr. Gore but no one’s hurting them.

To recap: Messrs. Gore and Lieberman have been sparring—feinting and jabbing—as they circle each other in the ring.

Mr. Lieberman says Mr. Gore’s populist strategy in the 2000 elections was “ineffective”—smack! Mr. Gore says this is no time to “stop telling the truth” to the American people—pow! Mr. Lieberman says Americans reject “us versus them” rhetoric—take that! Mr. Gore says centrism is “bad politics and bad principle”—there’s more where that came from, buddy!

*   *   *

Why are the former allies now foes? You know why. Joe Lieberman thinks Joe Lieberman’s a winner and Al Gore’s a loser. He shares the views of most of the leaders and funders of his party: Mr. Gore is damaged goods, a bad campaigner who wasted the precious patrimony of peace and prosperity, a charm-free zone who took a weird turn in his acceptance speech two years ago this week, abandoning centrist sophistication and embracing Huey Long populism. In the debates with George W. Bush, Mr. Gore seemed like a cross between Frankenstein and Carrot Top. Also journalists, always more important to Democrats than Republicans, do not and never will warm to him.

Mr. Lieberman has a point.

Mr. Gore, on the other hand, feels he plucked Lieberman from the Senate gaggle, got him past the vetting of the left, made him a person in history, the first Jewish vice presidential nominee, and on top of it all he brought the ticket 500,000 votes more than the winners (Messrs. Bush and Cheney) got.

Mr. Gore has a point too.

Mr. Lieberman has vowed that he will not run for the Democratic presidential nomination if Mr. Gore does. He has also told Godfrey Sperling of the Christian Science Monitor that he is “meditating and activating” on whether to run. Sounding a lot like Al Gore, he defined activating as “moving around the country meeting with many leaders, speaking out on issues.” He said he will make a final decision after the midterm elections and before the end of the year.

He says he has no opinion on whether Mr. Gore should run. But everyone knows Mr. Gore is running. So what exactly is Mr. Lieberman doing?

He’s having fun and being serious at the same time. He’s keeping the spotlight, he’s investigating Enron and helping to fashion a Homeland Security Department, and he’s demonstrating to party leaders that he isn’t a creampuff, he knows how to be aggressive on the issues. By taking on Mr. Gore, he elevates himself from Beta Man to possible Alpha Man. Good work for a slow summer.

Mr. Lieberman made it as a moderate. He feels the future of the Democratic Party lies in sympathetic centrism. He sees the vast, vote-rich American middle class as the true potential home of the party. And again he has a point. This is how two-term winner Bill Clinton read the playing field, and if Mr. Clinton knew anything it was popular politics. But while centrism may be the future of the Democratic party, it isn’t the future of Al Gore.

*   *   *

Politics, as they say, is a game of addition. Middle-class appeals expand the party, and unite the country. Populism pierces: Its message is often rousing but inherently divisive. It attempts to divide the electorate between the bad people who think of nothing but themselves, and the good people who seek to help the working class. What of those who seek to help working people through conservative policies? According to left-wing populists, they don’t exist, or don’t really mean it, or are unwitting pawns of economic royalists.

In the 2000 campaign, Mr. Gore figured that he would have to rouse his left-wing base to win. And the way to do that, he judged, was to play to the presumed passions and resentments of the little guy. He can argue now that he was right: He did bring out his base.

Still, when Mr. Gore, whose career had been one of self-proclaimed centrism, went left two years ago, many political observers were surprised, including me. I wondered if perhaps Mr. Gore judged himself to be a rather chilly character, a man who could not approach the electorate with a Clintonesque warmth because . . . he doesn’t have much warmth.

If you don’t have warmth maybe heat is the next best thing. And maybe that’s what Mr. Gore’s turn to populism was all about.

But his populist stance was never a perfect fit. Mr. Gore never made the old rhetoric new. He never made it something alive and pertinent to the moment. He sounded stale, and merely rhetorical. He was like a bright Ivy League student who had gone to a revival of a Clifford Odets play and thought he’d bring the rhetoric home to upset dad. Mr. Gore’s populism seemed cynical, a mere strategy chosen for the maximum gain of the candidate.

*   *   *

The Gore-Lieberman feud also raises the question of whether, in national politics, it’s better to be a Lover or a Fighter. Lovers seem to voters to be driven by a desire to help and protect. The most successful conservatives (George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan) have been Lovers. They may carry the sterner message, but they put it forward with a certain joy and moral confidence. Fighting conservatives don’t last so long or do so well. (Ask Fox News analyst Newt Gingrich.)

But there’s a downside to Lovers. They can get too soft. A few months ago I asked a Republican senator what President Bush should do next. He said, “Veto something.” I asked, what? He said, “Anything!” Meaning: Loverboy ought to show some muscle, jab someone, show ‘em who’s the man.

With Democrats, too, it’s probably true that Lovers flourish and Fighters don’t, at least long term. Mr. Lieberman seems to see himself as a Lover, embracing the middle class. He’s painting Mr. Gore as a Fighter. And Mr. Gore is helping him. Because he likes the pose of the pugilist. His aggression may be joyless but it’s interesting to watch, and makes its own heat. And it can be intimidating. It’s just not inspiring. Unless you’re the left wing of his party.

The pope’s trip to the Americas has ended in Mexico with the canonization of the fabled Juan Diego of Guadalupe, the 464th saint recognized by the church since John Paul’s papacy began. The pontiff has now recognized more saints than all his predecessors combined. His readiness to canonize is in service of an eagerness to evangelize. This is John Paul’s desire: To raise up from as many nationalities, ethnic groups and indigenous peoples as possible a saint who is of them, from them and yet an exemplar of the universal church.

Keep the base and build the base.

Twelve million people lined the streets of Mexico City to greet John Paul the day he arrived—12 million! The church may have suffered in the field this year, but the troops apparently remain.

*   *   *

What did his trip accomplish? Something big. He proved that no matter how healthy or capable-seeming the pope is or is not, he is here, he is loved, he has power, he is a presence. The trip was a reply to those within and without the church who have called for the pope’s resignation or retirement. John Paul said, through his actions, God decides when a pope “resigns”; God will take the pope from the earth, and as long as God keeps the pope here, the pope will fill the shoes of the Fisherman and do the work of the Lord.

I don’t think we’ll be hearing any more calls for the pontiff’s departure any time soon.

By presenting the fact of his presence, the pope demonstrated not his personal power but the enduring power of the papacy itself, and of the church, too, come hell or high water, come scandal or shame.

*   *   *

On the streets of Mexico City they sobbed as he went by. Did you see it on the news? The pope was in the glass-enclosed popemobile, and as he passed, the people who jammed the streets and sidewalks reached out to him with their hands and burst into tears and sobs.

The pope they were reaching for, of course, was not the sturdy, charismatic man in white who had wowed the crowds on his first trip to Mexico as pope, 23 years ago.

This man is old, a caged lion bent and spent.

And still they sobbed and reached for him.

Why?

*   *   *

“The force of his presence was like a blow to the heart.” That’s how the actor Richard Burton described meeting Winston Churchill. I thought of that after I met the pope.

It was late June 2000, and I was visiting Rome to speak to a business group. When I was invited to speak I called a friend of a friend in the New York Archdiocese and asked if I could get a ticket to an audience with the pope. She took down the number I’d be staying at and told me to stand by.

I was to be in Rome for five days, and each day I hoped a call would come. The day before I left, the phone rang in my room, and a young woman with perfectly enunciated English told me that the next morning I would see the pope. “Go to the big bronze doors of the Vatican,” she said, “and wait.”

That’s what I wrote in my notes. No address, just big bronze doors, Vatican.

The next morning at sunrise I hailed a taxi and said in English: “The big bronze doors of the Vatican,” and the driver said “OK!” as if he’d been told that destination before. We drove through silent streets. I was excited. You’re supposed to get less enthusiastic about people as you get older, or at least less moved by them, and be less impressed by them, but that hasn’t happened to me. And the pope was the person I most admired in the world—John Paul the Great. Writer, poet, evangelist, lover of children, comforter of the pained, inspirer of the caged and controlled, resister of fascism, defeater of communism, definer and denouncer of materialism, great foe of the culture of death. A great man of the ages, a man for all seasons and times.

We got to the big bronze doors, and I stood in front of them in the thin morning sun. I knocked. The sound of my knocking seemed tinny, almost comic against the weight of the doors. No one answered.

Soon a young man came by—early 20s, tight black jeans, tight black T-shirt, pierced earrings up and down his ears, pierced earring in his eyebrow, black spiky hair, sideburns shaved to points on the curve of his jaw. We waited silently, looked at each other and looked away. Finally I looked at my watch. “Guess they’re not open yet,” I said.

He nodded and said, “I’m early.”

“Do you have an appointment here?”

“Yes,” he said. “I’m going to see the pope.”

He was from Canada, he said. He writes rock music and is an aspiring musician. He was in Rome for work and asked his bishop back home if he could see the pope.

I told him I had done the same.

Little by little they came, our motley crew. A hearty, high-colored middle-aged man with an Australian accent, in a sober black suit, his wife and teenage children. They looked like the richest Catholics in Sydney. Then a Polish family in full native costume—dirndles, braided hair, pleated white dresses and blue cotton bows. Soon there were more than a dozen of us.

Suddenly, silently the great bronze doors opened, and we were gestured in by a man in a janitor’s clothes. He hustled us up the stairs, past Swiss Guards in their black-and-red uniforms. Up a series of marble stairs, to the right and up some more, then a landing from which one looked down great marble halls. Then up another floor until we were ushered into a huge and stately room of white-gray marble.

Here waiting were more people. There were about 30 of us in all now, and we lined the room standing against the walls. The room filled with excited chatter. I had stuck with my heavy-metal Canadian, and the Australians had stuck with us.

My Canadian looked at me and said, with some urgency, “What do we do when we meet him? How do you meet the pope?”

It hadn’t occurred to me to think about this. I shrugged and said, like a happy American idiot, “I think you shake his hand.”

“You do?” he said. “I thought you, like, kiss it, or bow.”

“I don’t know,” I said, and turned to the Australian burgher to ask him when suddenly there was silence. Like a blanket of silence had fallen on us. And we all looked in the same direction and suddenly two great doors were opening soundlessly, and then there was a rustling noise, and we stood straight up.

*   *   *

And he entered. John Paul the Great. Massive and frail, full and bent—a man like frail marble. He was dressed in white robes, a white beanie on his white hair. He walked slowly, a cane in his right hand, his head tilting forward. The face expressionless—the Parkinsonian mask.

He stepped into the room and the room burst into applause.

And suddenly there was singing. It was a group of dark-haired young nuns dressed in blue. They almost levitated at the sight of him and they had burst into song. He stopped in front of them and his head went back and his chest filled. Then he took his cane and shook it at them merrily and said in a baritone that filled the room, “Philippines!”

Feel-ah-PEENZ.

And the nuns exploded with applause because they were indeed from the Philippines and he had known. They one after another knelt on the floor as he walked past.

Now he looked at another little group and he shook his cane comically as he passed them and said, “Brah-SILL!”

And the Brazilians cheered and started to cry.

And the pope moveed on, shuffling now, and he walked by an extraordinary looking young man—coal black hair, thick and cut so that it was standing straight up. It looked like Pentecost hair. He was slim, Asian, in the dress of a seminarian. He had been watching things dreamily, happily, his hands in the attitude of prayer, and then the pope stopped, turned and held his cane toward him.

“China!” he said.

And the young man slid to his knees, bent toward the floor and moved to kiss the pope’s shoe.

And the pope caught him in an embrace as if to say No, I am not your hero, you are my hero.

And from nowhere came to me the electric charge of an intuition. I felt with certainty that I had just witnessed a future saint embrace a future cardinal of Beijing.

And my eyes filled with tears.

The pope proceeded down the line, nodding and patting, and when he got to me I jerked into a kind of curtsy-bow and touched his right hand with my hands. Then I bent and covered his thick old knuckles with Chanel No. 23 Red Raspberry lipstick.

I couldn’t help it. I think I said, “Papa.” He nodded. He was probably thinking, “Oh Lord, another lipstick leaver.” And then he pressed into my hand a soft brown plastic envelope bearing an imprint of the papal seal. When I opened it later I saw light and inexpensive rosary beads, the crucifix of which carried an aluminum Christ on the cross, his broken body ungainly and without grace. It is this depiction of Christ that the pope carries at the top of his crozier, the long silver staff he uses when he walks into the world.

I still have the picture of our meeting. I never saw anyone take it and was surprised to receive it in the mail. I look gooney. Like a happy gooney woman transported by bliss.

*   *   *

The last person in line was the Canadian rocker. When the pope came to him, he bowed and kissed John Paul’s hand. “I have written music for you,” he said. He showed the pope a sheet of music, beautifully done by hand and laminated. It had a title like “A Song for John Paul II.”

The pope looked at it and said, “You wrote?”

And the rocker, rocking, said, “Yes, for you.”

The pope took it, walked 10 feet away to where there was a big brown table, and signed it in a big flourish—Johannes Paulus II. And came and handed it back.

And then he walked on, and out of the room.

There was silence again until it was broken softly by my rocker. “This is the greatest day of my life,” he said to me. And my eyes filled with tears again because I knew it was true and because it is a privilege to be there on the best day of another human being’s life.

We were ushered out and I went into the streets of Rome and in time hailed a cab and told the cab driver all about it. I was so excited I left my eyeglasses on the seat. But I still had the rosary beads, and they’re here with me right now, right in front of me on my desk.

*   *   *

So when I saw those sobbing, reaching Mexicans I knew what they knew. When you see the pope something happens. You expect to be moved but it’s bigger than that and more surprising. It feels like a gaiety brought by goodness. It feels like a bubbling up. I think some people feel humbled by some unseen gravity and others lifted by some unknown lightness.

It’s like some great white dove flutters from your chest, emerges and flies upward. And you didn’t even know it was there. And all this leaves you reaching outward, toward one who is broken, ungainly, without grace. And it fills you with tears. Or so it seems to me. At least that was my experience.