A policy of retreat and withdrawal will only make America more vulnerable.

This was a strong repudiation of Democratic efforts to pass legislation calling for immediate, premature withdrawal from Iraq before the mission was complete.

We hope Al Gore uses this opportunity to explain why during his term, teen drug use in America nearly doubled, the number of drug treatment beds in federal prisons were cut by over one-third, the office of National Drug Control Policy was cut by 83 percent and federal gun prosecutions have decreased by 46 percent.

Others saw in the trend still another instance of a disturbing tendency in the American suburb: the longing for withdrawal, for self-enclosure, for expensive isolation.

The break for me was the Medicare drug benefit in 2003. It's just grossly expensive, bad policy. After that, I no longer gave them the benefit of the doubt and started seeing the glass as half-empty.

Open Target: Where America Is Vulnerable to Attack.