Dick Morris likes the Bush campaign’s “Wolves” TV ad.

Bush’s media man Mark McKinnon raises the level of concern about terror to realistic proportions in an advertisement that features wolves closing in on an unsuspecting and distracted America. As the wolves close in, McKinnon’s narrator lists the cuts in intelligence funding, weapons systems and defense spending that Kerry has backed during his Senate career.

It’s the best negative ad since media genius Tony Schwartz showed a mushroom cloud as a little girl picked petals off a daisy to derail Barry Goldwater’s 1964 crusade.

The wolf ad has sparked an amazing surge in Bush’s support to the point where every poll but one shows him well ahead of his Democratic rival. It perfectly captures the odd juxtaposition of seeming peace and tranquility at home and the looming danger from abroad.

9/11 began as a beautiful day, too. We woke up to crisp fall air in a sky without humidity or clouds. But the terror planes were taking off from our airports and flying over our city, circling our buildings, closing in with stealth and cunning.

Just as the wolves in the Bush ad do.

Kerry & Co. denounce Bush for running a campaign of fear. But we could have used a bit more fear when Bill Clinton failed to prepare us for the threat of terror. If only he had been more afraid of terror, he might have given the go-ahead to the 1998 CIA plan to kidnap Osama bin Laden or not tipped off the Pakistanis - and through them bin Laden - to our cruise missile attack in 1998 or given the green light to fire missiles at Osama in 1999 when the CIA said we had the best chance ever to get him.

A little fear back then would have helped a great deal.