To paraphrase Art Linkletter, that Paul Campos sure says the darndest things. In a recent News column attacking Sen. Joe Lieberman, Campos pooh- poohed the threat of Islamofascism, even scoffing at the very term. He branded as "transparently hysterical nonsense" a perfectly reasonable statement by Lieberman comparing this threat and the evil underlying it to Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union. That puts Campos in the same bed of irrational denial with the likes of Michael Moore, who in October 2003 declared "There is no terrorist threat in this country. This is a lie. This is the biggest lie we've been told." Good company, Paul.

Campos dismisses Osama bin Laden as little more than "a guy hiding in a cave somewhere armed with an AK-47 and a tape recorder, who commands the uncertain allegiance of a few thousand equally poorly armed fanatics." And he shrugs off the 3,000 killed on 9/11 and others who have died at the hands of Islamofascist assassins by noting that "more Americans drown in bathtubs every year than are killed by terrorists."

His tortured point seems to be that by implementing heightened domestic security measures and launching counterattacks on al-Qaida and others abroad, we've stooped to the "politics of cowardice," as he puts it, thereby empowering bin Laden and his minions. Did I mention that Campos is a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder? This, as George Orwell, once put it, "is nonsense so great, only an intellectual could believe it."

Campos offers only condescending criticism and armchair bravado. What's his alternative? Do nothing and wait "courageously" for the next hit? Turn the other cheek?

Yes, the cost in lives to Americans has been relatively low by historical standards - so far. But the economic cost has been massive. As an open society protective of individual rights and due process (up to a point), we're especially vulnerable. Related defense and homeland security spending and the public and private cost of remedies and precautions since 9/11 has amounted to hundreds of billions of dollars. While necessary, these are unproductive overhead expenses.

When you consider the economic opportunity costs and the cloud of risk that hangs over our society and financial markets, the price tag runs into trillions. But what choice do we have? This is a matter of national survival. World War II was expensive, too.

Terrorism is just a tactic. Islamofascism is a movement, a cause, and it's no illusion; it's all too real. Stephen Schwartz, one of the first Westerners to use the term, describes it as the "use of the faith of Islam as a cover for totalitarian ideology." He notes that fascism, by definition, goes far beyond the realm of conventional political differences, in that it is unrestrained by public civility or the law. It's wholly intolerant, militant, ruthless and aggressive. In the Islamofascist form it's messianic and theocratic. There can be no separation between church and state. This perverse version of Islam brooks no dissent. Nonbelievers and apostates must either convert or be executed.

Campos argues that Hitler and Stalin had more forces and ran up far bigger numbers of victims during their reigns. True, but they started small, too. The Cold War lasted half a century, the Islamofascist war against modernity and the "infidels" (us) could last much longer. The death toll? The tactics of asymmetrical warfare combined with modern technology provide ample opportunities to wreak mass destruction on open societies.

Just wait 'til the mullahs and ayatollahs in Iran get nukes. The leaders of the Soviet Union were rational. That's why the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction was effective in deterring a nuclear exchange between the two superpowers. In fact, Soviet communists weren't looking for salvation in the hereafter. They were Marxian dialectical materialists and atheists! They wanted power and perks in this life. Now, we're dealing with suicidal, religious zealots lusting for death and a martyr's rewards - 72 virgins and more - in a heavenly paradise.

Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton, and author of The Crisis of Islam, offers this passage from the Ayatollah Khomeini, quoted in an 11th-grade Iranian schoolbook: "I am decisively announcing to the whole world that if the world-devourers \[i.e., the infidel powers] wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them. Either we all become free, or we will go to the greater freedom which is martyrdom. Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours."

These maniacs mean business, Paul. Your bathtub is, at worst, a passive threat. It doesn't want to kill you.

Correction: In my column last week I referred to "the late" Peter Metzger as the man who first described liberals as "coercive utopians." I have been advised by Metzger humself that he is still alive and well.

Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.