Forty-Nine days ago the forces of evil carried out a deliberate attack on the citizens of the United States. Six thousand lives were lost. Upward of 15,000 children lost a parent. Spouses, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles and grandparents lost a love one. Hundreds of thousands of people DIRECTLY impacted by loss of a family member. Counting friendships and working relationships destroyed the geometrical progression must be pushing a million.

Fast forward a few weeks. New headlines. "Anthrax!" It started with the Tabloids, spread quickly to the TV networks and then the Government. It seems folks were falling over themselves to be the next victim of an anthrax attack! Even Slick Willie had to get into the act. Not being able to find anyone to send him anthrax, he comes up with two vials of salmonella!

I don't know who is behind it but the anthrax attack on the United States of America has done some serious damage to the nations psyche.

There are some things happening here that I view with dismay. First, Tommy Thompson, Sec. HHS, has made himself look like an idiot. In his attempts to calm the public he has made a number of statements that he then had to turn around and disclaim causing more confusion than calm. He came to the job with good reviews but has squandered any good will he may have had.

Secondly, President Bush has been pretty shaky at times also. I mean first he has kids sending dollars to the White House to help Afghani children, which was I thought a good idea. Now those dollars are sitting in a warehouse somewhere and there has been talk of destroying a lot of that mail because it may be tainted with anthrax. His second and biggest blunder is, in the middle of this Anthrax by mail terror campaign, he suggests setting up a pen-pal campaign between US and Muslim students!

Is any parent in their right mind going to let their kid correspond by mail with Muslims? I don't think so. I mean come on, have we not seen the video of those little Muslim darlings in their madrassas rocking back and forth, waving their fists and shouting death to the 'Great Satan?"

And finally, Tom Ridge the new DHS is spending too much time trying to explain what it is he is doing, which isn't much. He needs to disappear for a month or so, get his team together and map out a strategy for this new department.

Something like when are we going to secure our boarders, when and how are we going to deport all the swarthy middle eastern types that are here, legally and illegally, and when exactly are we going to fix the myriad of security problems in aviation? There are more things that need to be done. Kathleen Parker has a column that provides a great laundry list of things that need to be accomplished, and quickly.

Now I know we are plowing new ground here and not all of the rocks have been cleared from the field. However, there are more important things that require our leaders and our attention.

The first thing is the progress of the war in Afghanistan. We started off on the right foot, thought things through, got the required assets in place and then went into action. Now it seems someone (Powell?) has put the brakes on. We have lost the momentum and Taliban rhetoric grows more defiant as they cower in their caves. In addition, it is now being reported that thousands of Pakistani are crossing into Afghanistan vowing to fight to the death a holy war against the United States.

We really need to get this Afghanistan phase over with and in a timely fashion. Otherwise the governments of other nations that harbor and support terrorism are not going to get the correct message.

Another thing we need to do is get off of Israel's case and let them fight terrorism in their little section of the world. I can't believe that after the PLO assassinated an Israeli MP we are telling them to back off. Anyone that thinks the PLO isn't a terrorist organization must be smoking baked banana peels. At the end of the day it is going to be just us, the Brits and the Israelis, all this other coalition BS is just that, BS!

And finally the Media. They are not going to get front row seats for this war. My advise to them is get over it and get on to something they can be helpful at, like climbing all over these charitable organizations sitting on $1.4 billion collecting dust, and interest, while the families of the victims of 911 are left to fend for themselves.