An article in today's WaPo notes that, thanks to this administration's chronic dissembling and incompetence, even the Brits have decided that they don't want to be seen with us in public anymore:

[Hostage Kenneth] Bigley's death reminds the British that, where Iraq is concerned, they have made their bed with the Americans -- something Blair has tried hard to make them forget. Until the kidnapping, the British government had tried to create the impression that Iraq had become an exclusively American problem. The government rejected all suggestions from the Bush administration that it might increase troop strength in Iraq or expand its operational area. All the reported violence was in the U.S. zone of occupation. U.S. troops were blamed for heavy-handed tactics. When the Conservative Party's defense spokesman noted, in a radio interview, that British troops around Basra were back in hard helmets and armored transports and were being subjected to attacks, this was news to many people.

Downing Street had also done a consummate job of minimizing Blair's public contact with Bush and senior administration officials. Bilateral visits were kept formal and, if possible, under wraps. Photographs à deux at international gatherings, such as the G8 summit, were avoided. Britain's foreign secretary, not Blair, represented Britain at the recent U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. If you ask his office when Blair plans to collect the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor he was awarded more than a year ago, you are told no date has been set.

Just to be clear: It's not George Bush's fault that America has brutal and dangerous enemies; the Islamists declared war on us long before he arrived on the scene. But Mr. Bush is responsible -- wholly responsible -- for the fact that we find ourselves fighting them with an ever-shrinking circle of friends.

Which points up an increasingly conspicuous truth: Anyone who takes national security seriously has no real choice but to vote for John Kerry this November. Because America can't win the war on terror alone. And we can't fight it any other way as long as George Bush is in the White House.

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