An editorial by Wall Street Journal editor, Daniel Henninger, reveals the profound cultural/political divide this election year represents. And, yes, the divide has its historic marker in 1968. Just last night I saw a TV clip of Jane Fonda, now old and past her prime, denounce the smear campaign against Kerry involving a photograph of him sitting behind her during an anti-Vietnam war rally. Interestingly, Ms. Fonda was angry that Mr. Kerry was being smeared as if to admit that a mainstream politician's association with her would be damning. Of course, she didn't recognize that, being the narcissist that she is. Her manner during the clip was extremely belligerent, haughty, holier-than-thou, and, of course, dictatorial. Her performance aspired to the maniacal rants, lasting for hours, of the Caribbean isle's tyrannical Commandante.

What we see here is a wrestling for the soul of America. Will we continue with the self-loathing of liberal Americans who believe that an aggressive American foreign policy is wrong, unless it is for strictly humanitarian purposes, where there is no threat to us, such as Clinton's laudable intervention on behalf of the Kosovar Albanians? Or do we defend our nation against fascists when they are a real threat to us and, by way of an unprecedented event in our history, already slaughtered civilians on our own shores?

With every day I grow more bitter that I have a dog in this fight but am stymied by Bush's catering to the gay-bashing Right. Yes, I could simply vote for him and hold my nose. But I do believe in principle, even as I find my position intellectually untenable (not vote for Bush but support him anyway?). Who am I kidding?. My non-vote would be a vote for the Democrat candidate. If I had the ideological clarity of a Jane Fonda I would have no problem voting for Bush. I would excuse Bush's gay-bashing for the sake of the "revolution." But I can't. At the end of the day I have to be a human being— confused, grappling, and incoherent. How could I look in the mirror and say to myself I voted for someone who supports a movement to enshrine prejudice, hatred, and discrimination in the Constitution for the first time in America's history?

Matters will only get worse as the year proceeds. Henninger takes note of what is at stake.

We have in George Bush a president for whom the formative event of his political life is not Vietnam and the years after but September 11, a catastrophic attack on American soil by an organized global enemy. With his doctrine of pre-emption for threats to U.S. security, his destruction of the Taliban and overthrow of the Hussein regime in Iraq, Mr. Bush has largely broken free of the political period that shaped John Kerry's career. Mr. Bush argues that he is dealing with a world and enemy that has not previously existed. But with Iraq, 30 years of Primary Democratic belief instinctively reappears as resistance, led again by John Kerry. If George Bush's sense of right purpose flows directly from September 11, 2001, so too does many Democrats' from what John Kerry was doing and thinking in 1968 in the Mekong Delta.

September 11th is also a "formative event" for me and many other Americans. Yet I was also formed by the civil rights era when minorities struggled to enter the land of milk and honey on the coattails of blacks, who created the movement, the singular most miraculous creation of 20th century American domestic poltics. I cannot ignore the generation of 1968 because I am also a part of it. Regardless of my hatred for Communism, America-bashing, and near-sexual adoration of Third World thugs, I cannot deny that part of me that is of the same cloth as Kerry and Co. That is, I must part company with those with whom I feel most secure, America's Right, to side, by default, with those who cannot be trusted with fighting American's enemies.

What a sorry and pathetic position I find myself in and one is welcome to read into it any self-indulgence one pleases.