The issues that will likely define the looming Presidential election crystallized on the front page of my newspaper where the following headlines were juxtaposed; Busted Clinton Slept on Couch, and American Hostage Decapitated. Both stories described men who had been, in some manner, caught — and as a result would no longer enjoy any head. I can’t help but feel that life was more whimsical when we worried about who was getting rug burns in the Oval Office as opposed to our current preoccupation with murderous Islamic fanatics. To bastardize Ronald Reagan’s famous 1980 query; do you feel safer today than you did four years ago?

I certainly don’t. And neither do the folks over at the State Department who pessimistically revised their “Patterns of Global Terrorism” dispatch, which the White House had been trumpeting as evidence of their momentum in the battle against Al Qaeda. On Tuesday, a penitent Colin Powell told reporters that the original assessment – which evinced a huge decline in terrorist activity – was a “big mistake.” In his latest supplication, the Secretary avowed, “nobody was out to cook the books,” but later allowed that, “Dick Cheney was seen in the kitchen.” The final analysis, the Committee to Re-elect will be forced to wrestle with corrections that concede twice as many casualties and a disturbing increase in the number of attacks.

In an effort to mollify its subjects, the Department of Homeland Security is touting a new virtual border defense system. With a price tag of $15 billion, the intricate program combines digital photos, scanned fingerprints, GPS technology, RF emitting passports, and data mining software which links federal and local law enforcement computer databases. Tom Ridge’s slobbering enthusiasm, however, seems rather unwarranted given that the FBI can’t even handle rudimentary detective work. This spring, evidence left by an Algerian during the Madrid train bombings was mistakenly attributed to Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield. After a high profile arrest, the feds blamed Spanish police for smearing some fingerprints, and Mr. Mayfield – unlike my grave doubts – was released from custody. Federal agents bungling about with such fundamentals fails to engender confidence that our government can protect her charges with sophisticated biometric identifiers and elaborate surveillance systems. Maybe we’d do better watching reruns of CSI and never leaving the house.

Vern Jensen, for one, wishes the doctors and lawyers at Kingston Dunes Country Club would just stay home. Jensen, the golf course starter, grapples with the delicate logistics of accommodating high paying members who are “ready to run each other over with their Mercedes and Porches.” All this over the issue of medical-malpractice. Things have gotten so dicey that many doctors now refuse treatment to attorneys and their families. Web sites compile lists of plaintiffs and litigators to help weed out prospective patients while M.D.s who testify as expert witnesses against their peers are being ostracized. A nurse was recently fired by a Texas hospital simply because her husband is a lawyer. “I’m not saying somebody shouldn’t have the right to sue,” explained surgeon Chris Hawk. “This idea may be repulsive,” he acknowledged, “but it’s ethical.” Some lawyers are firing back, refusing to represent doctors, but Vern Jensen has his own take: “They should all take their fancy titanium 5-woods, wrap them in their kid’s trust funds, and shove the whole bolus up their privileged asses.”

Battle lines are also forming between liberal politicians and the Catholic Church. New Jersey Governor James McGreevey will eschew public mass in response to Rome’s hard line stance against elected officials who don’t vote according to God’s word. St. Louis Archbishop Raymond Burke, taking clues from the Vatican, ordered that American priests deny sacrament to politicians who support abortion rights, and publicly admonished John Kerry “not to present himself for communion.” The prelate withheld judgment, however, on executives of the Evanston Insurance Co., which is suing the archdiocese over claims paid to a boy molested and sodomized by Rev. Gary Wolken. Nonetheless, the Democratic Presidential candidate remains in hot water with the Holy See for his progressive views on abortion, gay marriage, and stem cell research. Kerry will find no refuge in his hometown of Boston, where Bishop Sean O’Malley plans on locking away the crackers. The Bishop, despite the whopping $85 million paid to 552 diocese parishioners who were molested and raped by scores of New England priests, declared that those who don’t vote according to church doctrine “should not come to communion.”

Ted Kennedy thinks Democrats should take a clue from Henry VIII and disavow the Pope altogether. History tells us that Hank’s divorce precipitated a cluster of bloody wars and the requisite sequence of executions and assassinations, but that’s nothing we can’t handle today. In the end, establishing the Church of England clearly worked out for the best: nowadays, instead of combating clergy, British politicians can take on more civilized opponents. Home Secretary David Blunkett wants pub owners to pay for cleaning up the copious vomit and broken glass that heralds the UK’s Sunday morning pedestrians. Even old Henry would accede that slopping around in pant cuffs soaked with last night’s ale is no way to greet the vicar.