Forty days before the election and things are getting ugly. Did I really read that Deputy Secretary Armitage chose Warsaw as the place to announce that he, too, thought that “terrorists prefer Kerry?” Of course, it’s not the line itself that is repugnant (indeed, one may hypothesize how it could even, in a perverse and not-too-complimentary to the current administration way, be true). Rather, it’s the electrifying fear that grips the listening public, as voters struggle to assess which leader will best protect the country during the next four years.

Will I find a distraction in the Manhattan grid of streets?