I'm with Paul Krugman 100%:

U.S. news organizations are under constant pressure to report good news from Iraq. In fact, as a Newsweek headline puts it, "It's worse than you think." Attacks on coalition forces are intensifying and getting more effective; no-go zones, which the military prefers to call "insurgent enclaves," are spreading - even in Baghdad. We're losing ground.

And the losses aren't only in Iraq. Al Qaeda has regrouped. The invasion of Iraq, intended to demonstrate American power, has done just the opposite: nasty regimes around the world feel empowered now that our forces are bogged down. When a Times reporter asked Mr. Bush about North Korea's ongoing nuclear program, "he opened his palms and shrugged."

Yet many voters still believe that Mr. Bush is doing a good job protecting America.

If Senator John Kerry really has advisers telling him not to attack Mr. Bush on national security, he should dump them. When Dick Cheney is saying vote Bush or die, responding with speeches about jobs and health care doesn't cut it.

Mr. Kerry should counterattack by saying that Mr. Bush is endangering the nation by subordinating national security to politics.

Hell yes. No more timidity.

Here's the ad I want to see: Rapid-fire images of the quagmire -- car-bomb blasts, burning Humvees, the hooded prisoner on the box -- intercut with all the bullshit lines we've heard for two years -- "Bring 'em on," "We know where the weapons are" -- BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM, faster and faster and faster. Then stop and fade to: FOUR MORE YEARS?