The elephant in the room

I didn't see McCain's victory speech, the Lakers having my undivided attention tonight, but Powerline notes something refreshing:

But here's the thing that struck me: McCain devoted part of his speech (and not just a passing reference) to the war on terror and, in particular, to winning it. That's not something I recall hearing in the victory speeches of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, nor would I expect to hear it from Hillary Clinton should she pull out a win tonight.

Nor would I, and that's a sad statement on the (lack of) seriousness of so many Americans at this point in history. How to successfully prosecute the War on Terror would be by far the dominant issue for a savvy voting public, with each candidate trying to stake out his/her own ground on how to defeat this existential threat to Western freedom. That most of the candidates in one party pay it only lip service and that all of those in the other party pander to their fringe by pretending it doesn't exist is beyond disturbing.

Yeah, yeah, whoever wins will have to actually govern and thus will be forced to start acting like a grown up, but that doesn't make me feel any better at this stage of the proceedings.