“Diplomacy,” an editor of our acquaintance likes to say,”should be used only as a last resort.” It is, he often adds, a method of conducting international relations that is appropriate only when, say, a military solution has become unattainable. His comments often bring a chuckle. But it seems that people are not chuckling now, not as the parade of diplomats and national security experts troops into the 9/11 commission to give testimony about how they really were on the alert for Al Qaeda during the run up to the attacks that ignited the current war.

For our part, we don’t have much of a taste for the exercise that has been undertaken by the Kean-Hamilton Commission, which could be just as easily called the B.A.F.C., or Blame American First Commission. No commission was necessary to prove that mistakes were made — the proof of that was that the attacks of September 11, 2001, killed so many Americans. It may be hard to gainsay the fact that the most dangerous years of diplomacy were between 1997 and 2001, when the Clintons held sway. But neither party came out of the diplomatic stupor until September 11, 2001, when the war was upon us in full force, and the commission staff is trying to be bipartisan in its casting of aspersions.

What we find breathtaking — in the midst of these hearings on the fecklessness of the diplomatic approach to attacks from Islamic extremists — are the statements criticizing Prime Minister Sharon for Israel’s decision to resort to arms in respect of Hamas. The United Nations Human Rights Commission actually passed a resolution condemning Israel for the attack that killed Sheik Yassin.

The Democratic Party intelligentsia and spinmeisters are racing now to craft a line that seeks to portray their party as the true hawks in the fight against terror. They are fit to be tied that after sending in the army and the arclights to deal with the Taliban, President Bush turned next to Iraq. The Battle of Baghdad had been forestalled by the diplomats for fully four years after the Congress established the goal of regime change as American foreign policy with the force of law. They are trying to blame Mr. Bush’s decision to choose arms for Spain’s decision to choose diplomacy. Mr. Bush has made his solution to the failures of September 11 clear. He has changed the regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan and embarked on a drive for freedom and democracy in the Arab world. Senator Kerry has made his own preferences clear — negotiations with the terrorists in Iran and a greater reliance on the United Nations, where the terrorist-sponsoring states have ambassadors and votes. A lot can happen between now and the election in November, but the voters have a way of figuring this out for themselves, without the help of a commission.