H. Jackson Brown once said, "There is nothing more expensive than a missed opportunity." The same might be said of President Bush's performance in the debate on Thursday night, and his subsequent drop in the polls. Senator John Kerry did nothing out of the ordinary-insisting for half the debate that invading Iraq would be comparable to President Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor, and for the other half that he voted to authorize the war because he believed that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat to the world. But, aside from two excellent moments (responding to a question about Kerry's character, and describing his time with the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq), the president seemed off balance, annoyed, addicted to repetitions of meaningless phrases and constrained. And so John Kerry, despite his innumerable inconsistencies, appeared poised, knowledgeable and presidential. In areas that could have played to his strength-the situation in Iraq and the war against terrorism-the president shot himself in the foot.

What could Bush have done? For starters, he could have eliminated the distinction Kerry tries to draw in the mind of voters between the war in Iraq and the war on terror. This could have been done forcefully by drawing from Kerry's own words; Bush might have pointed out that both before and after the invasion of Iraq, Kerry insisted that the removal of Saddam would weaken terrorism in the Middle East. He could then have gone on the offensive, arguing that Iraq, instead of New York City, has become the focal point of the war on terror. Instead of planning attacks against innocent civilians in the United States mainland, the terrorists now pour into Iraq from neighboring countries, where they confront our military, rather than our civilians. The war is thus a more equitable one, as the terrorists go up against machine guns and tanks rather than baby strollers and candy canes.

Bush could then have picked apart Kerry's assertion that the war on terror is primarily a law enforcement and intelligence gathering operation, rather than a military one. He could have pointed out the tension between opposing the Patriot Act and supporting tighter security at home, and he could have persuasively argued, rather than merely asserted, that fighting an aggressive war abroad is the best way to ensure our freedoms at home are protected. Kerry might have countered that he had supported the war in Iraq for precisely those reasons, but Bush could then have struck a crippling blow by reminding voters, again, of Kerry's politically motivated vote against the $87 billion for the troops in Iraq.

And finally, Bush could have seized on the fundamental problem with Kerry's candidacy: his almost pathological desire to have it two, three or nine different ways. Even confined to the 90 minutes of the debate, Kerry managed a colossal flip flop. He said near the beginning of the debate that "Iraq is not even the center of the focus of the war on terror. The center is Afghanistan …" In other words, Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan posed the real threat, not Iraq. But when Bush clumsily reminded Kerry later in the debate that he had voted for the authority to use force in Iraq, Kerry replied: "And from the beginning, I did vote to give the authority, because I thought Saddam Hussein was a threat."

Right there, Bush could have asked Kerry: "You're trying to have it both ways. Do you believe that Saddam Hussein was or was not a threat to the United States?" Kerry could have tried to escape by saying that he was misled by the pre-war intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, but the same would have to be said about Bush. Kerry could then only have argued that he saw Iraq as a threat only in the sense that he saw North Korea and Iran as threats-problems to be dealt with through our allies and with diplomacy. But the debate would have been all but over at that point, for Bush could easily have shown that Kerry voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq, not the use of sanctions. Bush could have scored major points by clearly and concisely showing how Kerry perpetually alters his position to fit the prevailing political winds: Saddam was a clear threat whenever the question of his vote to authorize the war is raised, but a diversion from the war on terror at all other times.

But, as we all know now, none of this happened, and the debate slipped through the president's fingertips. As happens so often in our politics, a debate was won through style, sound bites and political maneuvering, not through substance.