You know how brave your Department of Defense is? Not only is it fighting a war, it's also letting the public talk to it. The Pentagon is asking Americans – any Americans, up to and including the dumb ones – for ideas on fighting terrorists.

Uncle Sam wants to know how to defeat difficult targets, conduct protracted operations in remote areas and develop counter measures against weapons of mass destruction. So get an application by going to www.bids.tswg.gov, pressing "Download BAAs," and choosing the BAA released on Oct. 23. If the Pentagon likes your one-page idea ("Kill them and eat them"), it will ask for up to 12 pages of details ("Kill them and eat them then take a walk until you are hungry enough to eat more of them").

No, it's not exactly comforting that we're holding an open mike talent contest for, in effect, president. But you really have to credit the defense department for putting itself through this ordeal. To ask the public its opinion is to beg for a heaping helping of panicky, patronizing, uninformed scorn. And I don't mean that in an arrogant way. When I say, "the public," I include myself. We are all the public. And we also are an ignorant bunch of mouth-breathers.

Sure, buried among all the suggestions to the Pentagon will be a few brilliant ideas. But I suspect that 99.99999 percent of the suggestions will resemble one of the following letters:

"Dear Department of Defense,
"Nuke 'em.
"You're welcome."

Many experts are saying that bin Laden attacked America precisely so we would go stomping into the Muslim world like some 50-year-old former football tackle whose daughter ran off with her guitar teacher. This would allow Muslim extremists to protest our vicious, inexcusable attempts to prevent our own extinction. Supporting this theory is that such protests sprang up even before we'd dropped the first bombs.

In response to this delicate situation, many Americans will suggest that we take our revenge for the World Trade Center attacks by killing anyone who isn't American, then killing all the Americans who talk funny. Ironically, the first Americans to be taken out in that second wave of purges probably would be New Yorkers.

"Sirs,
"I am building an anti-gravity machine powered by chlorophyll and horse meat. I also am an excellent country singer, and perform at parties."

Never will there be any shortage of these guys – men with determination, a soldering iron, nine miles of copper tubing and a familiarity with the sciences culled primarily from having once assembled an air conditioner. The worst of it is that, among 600,000 people such as this who will write in, one of them has a really good idea.

The letters will go on an on:

"I am an 82-year-old veteran of World War II, and I can have the whole thing cleared up by Christmas. Just give me some cigarettes, an entrenching tool and my thyroid pills."

And:

"We've got to keep out foreigners. They come in here, spew their diseases and slaughter innocent people. Let's send them back where they came from – England.
"Sincerely, Chief Running Bear,
"Oneida Indian Nation"

And of course:

"Depending on how you define the term `terrorist,' that's probably what my ex-wife is – a lazy, shrill terrorist who I'm pretty sure is shacking up with another terrorist."

But, as I said, something good might come from all this: a satellite X-ray machine that can search for bin Laden's DNA; a photon that travels so much faster than the speed of light that we can send Morse Code messages into the past; a tiny, mechanical fly that buzzes into the Taliban camp and takes pictures; a really wacky Taliban song parody with which Weird Al Yankovic once again can give Americans a reason to go on; or maybe just a way to prepare the public itself for the long haul by reminding it that the people at risk from terrorist activity are still just a fraction of the 41,821 Americans who died last year in traffic accidents.

Anyway, that's what I'd tell the Pentagon. If it asked.