Vice President Dick Cheney says there are two key periods in American history: pre-9/11 and post-9/11. In his view it clearly is time to get out of the past and look toward what's coming.

In a "town meeting" rally at Cinergy Center on Thursday he delivered his campaign message in a friendly banter, but in a post-rally meeting with the Enquirer's editorial board he hit the topic again and again with the relentless cadence of a triphammer.

Sept. 11 "was a breakpoint in history. It sets the tone for the times to come," he told the crowd. Later, he said the war on terror can never be forgotten, America's guard can never be lowered and no one, in any country, can assume they are beyond terror's threat. We cannot treat terrorism today, the way we did before 9/11, as a criminal act. We must now treat it as war, and how we will fight that war is a key issue dividing the presidential candidates in this year's election.

Cheney clarified a statement he made in Des Moines earlier this week that has threatened to send the campaign off on another unnecessary tangent without substance. It was widely reported that he told a crowd there that America was in danger of another terrorist attack if John Kerry is elected - the implication being that al Qaida has a preference in the election. On Thursday, Cheney said the report of the Des Moines speech was inaccurate, that two of his sentences were mangled into one.

Whatever he said in Des Moines, in Cincinnati he clearly said what he meant: "Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks." Our enemies are not going to change their goals or alter their methods based on the American elections. The difference will be in how America responds to future threats and attacks.

Speaking in Cincinnati on Wednesday, Kerry said he would have assembled a stronger coalition of allies and given United Nations inspectors more time to search for weapons of mass destruction before sending troops into Iraq. Cheney said the Bush administration seeks allies to fight terror, but if allies are slow to respond, it will act unilaterally. That policy has become known as the Bush Doctrine, "and I clearly think . . . it is the more effective policy."

In response to criticisms that the type of unilateral response advocated by the Bush Doctrine leaves the United States standing alone and open to ever more fearsome attacks, the vice president noted that last week's attack on a school in Beslan, Russia, may be changing some opinions. Russia has stayed out of Iraq, but that did not prevent the deaths of hundreds of children when shots and bombs ripped through the school.

These events, along with other terrorist attacks in such disparate places as Mombassa, Djakarta, Madrid and Istanbul make it clear that while the United States is doing most of the fighting and spending most of the money in the war on terror, nations throughout the world are bearing the human costs.

Those costs are likely to keep going up, the vice president said, noting that we recently passed the milestone of 1,000 Americans killed in Iraq. Cheney is right when he says there is never likely to be an end to this war the way there was to World War II. There won't be a peace treaty or a surrender ceremony. Victory will come only when the terrorists realize that free nations are resilient enough to withstand their attacks and when places that were once terrorist strongholds, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are allowed to develop and prosper as free nations.

Cheney's "town meeting" was blessedly devoid of rhetoric on such non-issues as Bush's and Kerry's respective military records during the Vietnam era. Just as Kerry did Wednesday, the vice president talked about where the candidates differ on issues such as tax policy, health care costs and employment, as well as the war in Iraq.

It is heartening to see that the campaigns may at last be focusing on issues that will affect the direction and the safety of the country during the next four years.

What do you think? Are we better equipped to fight terrorism than we were on Sept. 11? Send your responses to letters@enquirer.com; fax to (513) 768-8410; or mail to Letters, Enquirer Editorial Page, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, OH 45202.