The Austin American-Statesman, one of the most liberal papers in Texas, bites the bullet and endorses George W. Bush for President: Despite flaws, Bush better leader for perilous times. (Hat tip: huckfunn.)

A country so deeply divided over such an array of issues should pause a moment and take a serious, sober look around.

Americans should ask themselves whether they really believe that European nations critical of the war effort will intervene in Iraq if Sen. John F. Kerry is elected president. They won’t.

Further, we should ask whether they really believe that anything less than a fundamental change in the way Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid programs are funded is adequate to meet future demands.

The war on terrorism

Redirecting the focus to the world as it is, Libya has given up its nuclear program and Afghanistan held its first free presidential election ever, and the process — the first in which women took part — went rather peacefully. A changed Libya and a changed Afghanistan were the direct result of President George W. Bush taking action.

We generally have supported the war on terror as well as the decision to go to war in Iraq, but we have never been shy about criticizing the prosecution of them either. The judgment of the president and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, as well as Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, has been clouded at times, and if Bush wins a second term, changes are certainly in order.

Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz need to go. Changes at the top of the Defense Department hierarchy would signal not weakness but a commitment to break from the mistakes of the past three years. The young people bearing the brunt of the burden and their families who share that burden deserve no less.

But there is no guarantee that a change in administrations would bring either stability or security to the Middle East in the foreseeable future. In fact, changing administrations now might embolden enemies who believe that Americans don’t have the stomach or the patience for the kind of protracted, unconventional warfare in which we are engaged.

Three years after terrorists struck at targets in New York and Washington, we live in a world that looks familiar but is vastly different from the one we knew before Sept. 11, 2001.

President Bush got some things wrong, but there is much he got right. We are faced with an unrelenting foe who strikes from the shadows and won’t be deterred by diplomacy or international resolutions. Bush’s resolve and commitment to stay the course are clear. As Winston Churchill once said, “When you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Though Kerry is an honorable man who knows firsthand the horrors of war, he is deluding himself if he thinks a different administration will change the outlook of a foe that doesn’t make war on an individual administration, but on the West in general and the United States in particular.

Dubious also is any notion that the United Nations will suddenly start enforcing its own sanctions and resolutions if there is a different occupant in the White House in January.