Security at the Staten Island Excelsior was extra-tight Monday night for Vice President Cheney’s visit to Rep. Vito Fossella’s fund-raising affair. Since I had already been through the intense Secret Service screening before I met Mr. Cheney in April, I don’t know why I assumed I would be able to cover the event without going through the same process. So on this very hot and muggy evening, I found myself stranded across Hylan Boulevard and resigned to listening to the shouts of a few dozen protesters behind a barricade.

My source at the Cheney-Fossella event informed me later that the room was packed with close to 1,000 guests. Mr. Cheney was there to underscore White House support for the young congressman, who has lately differed with President Bush on some issues. Whatever differences there may be – for example, Mr. Fossella has championed embryonic stem-cell research – they do not signify a rift in the warm relationship between the Bush administration and Mr. Fossella.

Clearly, the Staten Island pro-Fossella forces won the day by their sheer numbers. I had, however, expected a heavier turnout for the opposition, because earlier that day, I received an e-mail from an organization that has been targeting the congressman for his stance on Social Security.

New Yorkers United to Protect Social Security is a statewide campaign to hold local politicians accountable “for keeping the promise of Social Security.” That organization has been passing out fliers to commuters boarding the Staten Island Ferry. In a press release announcing Mr. Cheney’s visit Monday, it reported that its activists delivered a “Social Security Cake” to Mr. Fossella’s office to show him the impossibility of having cake and eating it too. They claim he can’t be for the president’s plan to privatize and be against the sliding-scale benefit reductions.

Are you bored yet? I am. My ennui cup spills over just writing about these demonstrations, which have more to do with hatred of the Bush administration than with any substantive debate. No organization like this existed when President Clinton and other Democrats were calling for Social Security reform in 1999.

But even these Social Security guardians were out of sight on that muggy Monday night. Instead we had the old reliable anti-war, war-for-oil brigade, shouting out the usual pathetic refrains – and making me wonder what these people do for a living in the real world. Because to utter such ridiculous shouts after what just happened in London two weeks ago suggests that they never pick up a newspaper or watch the evening news. Suicide bombers are not going to go away if we leave Iraq, folks. More than likely, they will increase in numbers, because they will believe they are winning.

At times I am tempted to go up to these well-fed poster-bearers and ask them if they truly understand what kind of enemy we are dealing with. It is an enemy unlike any we have ever faced.

Some of these suicide bombers have been educated here and in other Western countries. They are not poor, yet they sacrifice their lives because they believe they are doing it for Allah, therefore it is the right thing to do. How do you deal diplomatically with people who believe that only by killing all the infidels and establishing a Muslim theocracy can they find peace in heaven? They remind me of psychopaths, like the Son of Sam, who hear voices urging them to kill. Only the voices these fanatics hear are not coming from their own fevered brains but from trusted Islamic clerics who pervert the Koran for their own evil ambitions.

Still, these card-carrying protesters are convinced that singing “Kumbaya” and making the peace sign will make everything better. One of the protesters, a man named Gary Moore, carries around a ukulele as a weapon against the injustices perpetrated by the Bush administration. He says its sound makes you smile.

Thankfully we have a more realistic congressman in office in Mr. Fossella, who says: “The war on terrorism is about protecting America and preserving our way of life, including the right to protest. It all depends on how one decides to exercise that freedom: Some play ukuleles on Hylan Boulevard and wave homemade signs, while others listen to the vice president and myself discuss securing Homeland Security funding for New York City and bringing home additional resources for our first responders. That’s the beauty of America.”

I hear that Jane Fonda will be hitting the road soon on an anti-war campaign tour, in a bus fueled by vegetable oil. She’ll also be selling her book. I wonder if she has a ukulele.