The question of the week has been, who won the Presidential debates?

Was it Kerry with his polished performance, or was it Bush with his homespun believability?

As the news media continued to raise this seemingly vital issue long into the weekend, we, too, were caught up in the exercise. How great did Kerry look in his dark suit, red tie and new tan? How effective was Bush’s confident lean toward the camera? How uncomfortably familiar was Kerry’s thumb-in-hand point clincher, and how uncomfortable those Bush hesitancies?

After giving all some thought, we tired quickly of the exercise. It seemed silly to talk about winning or losing between two men standing safely behind a podium, under the glare of cameras and protected by legions of secret service personnel.

We believe the real score card is being marked and chartered a long way off.

The players are not standing in a college auditorium or a television studio; they are in the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are the American and coalition soldiers storming insurgent strongholds in Samarra, and other deadly places trying to make sense out of who is the enemy and who are the victims.

They are the operatives monitoring the moves of Al Quaida and other terrorist groups trying desperately to piece together enough information in enough time to prevent additional attacks on the United States and other countries.

They are the men and women trying to win the hearts and minds of peace- and freedom-loving people in the Middle East by building schools, staffing hospitals, rebuilding communities with electricity and water and bringing food, medicine and other relief to millions who have suffered at the hands of ruthless dictators for generations.

They are the workers and builders and craftsman; the engineers and architects; all those who, for many and complicated reasons are risking their lives for something they believe in: making the Middle East a better place, and our world a safer one.

They are the peacekeepers and those registering a people to vote in a desolate place in this world that has known only darkness and despotism.

Their work is taking place in a powder keg of danger; it is fraught with uncertainty and filled with doubt. And, all around them, deadly forces are in play to ensure their defeat.

They are the ultimate players in this presidential campaign, and every American and freedom-loving human being across the globe has a stake in the outcome of their work.

How insignificant the color of a tie, or the polish of an answer, the length of hesitancy or the pose before a podium seems against the challenge being faced by those serving valiantly on the front lines.

The only real question we should be asking is which of those two men can and will support these soldiers and commit themselves, and our country, to eliminating terrorism in every squalid quarter of the globe in which it lurks and hides.

Those are the only questions that count.