Let's roll
President Kennedy once declared that triumph in "a long, twilight struggle," would come at a steep "price," impose a heavy "burden," and entail genuine "hardship." So why is it that the government has refused to ask Americans to sacrifice for victory in this war? The standard retort is that it doesn't need to, that the wealth of America's treasury allows it to deliver both guns and butter. But by now, it is plain that America's war footing at home or, to be coldly honest, the lack of one, is undercutting its war abroad.

