Michael Moore's third column is a real downer. He wants Bush to apologize to every parent of every soldier killed in Iraq.

I'd like to hear Clinton apologize to the American people for the years that he spent pursuing ineffective ways of capturing Bin Laden. I'd like to hear Kerry apologize to the millions of veterans he defamed and to the Vietnamese boat people. I'd like to hear Al Gore apologize for insisting that he had won the election no matter how many recounts said otherwise. I'd like to hear Moore apologize for claiming that we invaded Afghanistan for no other reason than for an oil company to build a gas pipeline. It might even be appropriate for Bush's father, G.H.W.Bush to apologize for leaving Saddam in power, leading to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, possibly millions.

But for George. W. Bush and Iraq, I don't think that an apology in needed. Saddam and his sons killed a lot of people, Iraqi and others. The sanctions that kept Saddam from re-arming caused the death of somewhere between 300,000 and 3,000,000 Iraqis.

Democrats seem to place a very high value on American lives and a very low value on foreigners. A national leader should always put his own people first but there are limits. For every American who died since the liberation of Iraq, thirty or more Iraqis died during the sanctions. What percentage would make Michael Moore happy - 40-1, 50-1, 1,000-1? This happened in Kosovo. In order to prevent any American casualties, the bombers stayed so high that some bombs missed their mark. Personally, I would prefer that one or two Americans died than have a cluster bomb explode in the middle of a busy open-air market killing dozens.

Michael Moore wants Bush to apologize because Americans died in Iraq. Who will apologize to Iraq for the number of Iraqis dead since the end of the Gulf War?

We were expecting Iraq to cheer us as liberators but they were too wary. They trusted us in 1991 and we deserted them. Kerry has said that he will desert them again by this time next year if the uprising is still going on and he can't talk the French into dying in our place.

The terrorists in Iraq watch TV. They know what Kerry will do. This encourages them just as it did North Viet Nam.

Will Kerry apologize for this?

The Kerry campaign added a bunch of new staffers, most of them from the Clinton administration. The Kerry campaign is trying to put a good face on this but you don't reorganize a winning team.

The Kerry campaign has been saying for weeks that they have the election sewn up, that the undecideds will all vote against the status quo. Now they are getting worried. They should be. Up to this point, Kerry campaign didn't have a message, just a service record. The Republicans spent the night defining Kerry's Senate record. With two months left, it's pretty late to invent a message, or even make their candidate likeable. (Note the Zogby poll in which only 16% find Kerry personally likeable.)