The Week.

-- The British papers are abuzz about the news that John Major had an afaffair before he became prime minister. We're more upset that he was unfaithful to Margaret Thatcher.

-- Although its tenor was anti-war, Al Gore's speech on Iraq was a cacarefully hedged bet. It was written so as to look supportive of military action in the event it takes place and goes well. Now Gore has given another speech, on the economy. Again, he was cagey. President Bush's fiscal policy, Gore said, has failed and needs to be reassessed. He noted that President Reagan, at a similar point in his presidency, took back some of his tax cuts. Does this mean that Bush's tax cuts should be undone? Gore didn't say. On the two most important issues of the moment, the war and the economy, the former vice president-a man who has some claim to being the leader of the opposition-refuses to take a position. Perhaps he will take them by 2004, if anyone still cares.

-- A Massachusetts initiative to end bilingual education attracted a papair of predictable opponents on October 4, when liberal senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry announced their opposition. Much more surprising, and dismaying, was the decision by Colorado governor Bill Owens, a steadfast conservative, to urge the defeat of a similar measure in his state. Owens avoided the ethnic pandering that other Republicans have adopted in the past, instead citing small-print concerns about potential litigation and the rights of parents who unwisely but sincerely want their kids in native- language-maintenance programs. It's true that these initiatives are rough correctives. They are also necessary, if public schools are to ensure that immigrant children learn English. Polling suggests that Massachusetts voters will pass Question 2 handily. In Colorado, support for Amendment 31 is much more in doubt because of the governor's statement and heiress Pat Stryker's writing of a $3 million check to beat it. If Amendment 31 fails, Owens should make good on his pro-English rhetoric and push serious reform of bilingual education through his legislature.

-- About the best that can be said about the Republicans on Social SeSecurity is that so far their retreat has been orderly. A few of their congressional candidates have repudiated private investment accounts. Most of them are instead trying to execute a too-cute maneuver: disavowing the word "privatization" while leaving open the possibility of supporting private accounts. Sensing the Republicans' fear, the Democrats have been getting bolder and bolder. The DNC's website has a cartoon depicting President Bush pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair down a slope. (The slope represents the stock market.) Amid all this cowardly evasion and demagoguery, one can easily forget that a majority of the public actually favors private accounts. There is one bright spot: A business group- COMPASS-is running ads that make the case for reform. Let's hope Republicans are watching.

-- It is possible to doubt that we will sleep more soundly for having a nenew Department of Homeland Security. But doubt of this kind is not what is holding up the creation of the department. Senate Democrats believe the department will indeed make us safer. Yet they will support it only if they can limit the president's management flexibility. Current law allows the president to waive collective-bargaining agreements in the interest of national security; Senate Democrats want to take that power away from him. That means the agreements would stay in force, and that the new department would be much less effective. Under one such agreement, a union has already filed a grievance against the Customs Service for complying with an "orange alert" without first consulting the union. Another union agreement prohibits re-deploying Border Patrol tactical teams if suitable restaurants, drug stores, and barbershops aren't available at the new post. Of course Tom Daschle had a fit when President Bush suggested that the senators who are blocking the creation of the new department care more about saving union jobs than saving American lives. The charge is politically damaging and demonstrably true.

-- In making the case against going to war with Iraq, the Left is trtrotting out an old canard about combat: the assertion that minorities bear the brunt of casualties. Democratic Senate candidate Ron Kirk of Texas has repeated this claim, and so has TV personality Chris Matthews. But it simply isn't true, and never has been. During the Vietnam War, blacks constituted 12.5 percent of all deaths, while they composed 13.1 percent of the age-eligible population. Today, blacks are more likely to serve in the military than whites, but are "underrepresented" in the infantry, which traditionally suffers the most deaths. There's a simple reason for the discrepancy: Many blacks join the services for the purpose of learning skills-often ones they didn't receive in urban schools-and wind up in support functions. Whites are more likely to be looking for adventure. ...