Why does left believe him?

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If you believe John Kerry, President Bush has won all the important arguments about national security policy and strategy since September 11, and for the rest of the century.

It resembles the aftermath of the Cold War. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the left predicted either a coming together of ideologies on a socialist model or a continued coexistence between uneasy rivals. For them, victory in the Cold War was inconceivable as a goal, or worse. According to liberals in the 1970s and 1980s, capitalism was equal to or worse than Communism, and probably more likely to die first as an economic and political system, while rearming to confront the Soviets was a foolhardy and dangerous course. This logic drove the movement for unilateral disarmament and opposition to the deployment of cruise missiles and Pershing II missiles in Europe. Presumably these perspectives drove Mr. Kerry to vote against Cold War weapons systems in the midst of the Cold War.

Today these people are still here, but their arguments are nearly forgotten -- certainly they hope they are forgotten, because they don't want to be remembered as being on the wrong side of history.

Now they agree that free markets are not only here to stay, but that they are the best mechanism for effecting positive social change. Socialism is not mentioned anymore by anyone who wants to be elected. The Soviets are gone, and liberals declare that their demise was inevitable, and by the way unrelated to Ronald Reagan. In almost every argument, the left has abandoned its old defensive positions and adopted the ideas of conservatives. Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair declared victory for Mr. Reagan and Margaret Thatcher by not turning the clock back on a single one of their policies, but claiming credit for them. Remember welfare reform?

The conservative, free-market, pro-liberty, anti-Communist arguments won the day, even if the parties that championed them did not remain in power.

Similarly, the important national security policy arguments of a year ago are settled if you believe the Kerry campaign. Mr. Kerry agrees with President Bush that pre-emption is the only strategy any U.S. president can adopt in the face of the threats we face, and rejects any notion that the world in the form of any supranational body or individual country should ever infringe on our right to attack pre-emptively. Mr. Kerry agrees that the war in Iraq must be won, and that any cost must be borne to do so. The senator agrees that we must not pull out of Iraq until the job is done, and he agrees that getting the job done means leaving a self-sufficient democratic government in place. He agrees that going to Afghanistan was the right choice, and that waging war against al Qaeda, versus treating it like the subject of a police investigation, was the right course. Mr. Kerry agrees that defending us from al Qaeda means "hunting and killing" them, versus removing support for Israel or apologizing for U.S. history in the world.

All those who protested against the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq, all those who think the United States is the real villain and all those Deaniacs and Moveon.org-ers must be despondent. Mr. Kerry sounds remarkably Bush-like.

Yes, if you believe Mr. Kerry, the arguments are pretty much over, the sensible adults have won and the far left is now deep in despair. But wait, the far left is not in despair. In fact, Mr. Dean continues to actively support Mr. Kerry, and so do Moveon.org and the like. Why, if the arguments are settled, as Mr. Kerry and John Edwards have articulated, in favor of the Bush side, do the Deaniacs and their allies still back Kerry?

Apparently, it's because they don't believe what Messrs. Kerry and Edwards are saying to the American people at this stage in the campaign. Mr. Dean said it best, when asked at the Democratic convention about the similarity between Bush and Kerry positions. His response was, in effect, that no one believes what people say in party conventions to the national audience. The reason the left- leaning supporters of Mr. Kerry continue to support him in spite of the lack of light between his positions and Mr. Bush's positions is the faith they have that Mr. Kerry does not mean what he says, that Mr. Kerry, in order to bring sufficient moderates and swing voters to his ticket, is, in fact misleading America. If Howard Dean, George Soros and the rest of the left core of the Democratic Party, people who know Mr. Kerry best, do not believe him, we probably shouldn't either.

Greg Kyprios is managing partner at KittyHawk Partners.