He added, "Left unspoken were my reservations about the amorphous way the administration handled foreign policy."

One wonders, not very confidently, how later administrations would have handled the crisis.

"Some students feared that the administration wasn't handling the case properly," she said, "but we found out they were."

So rather than have the student government allocate the money, he said, the administration now handles it.

Another stark difference is how this administration handles politics.

But the new language marked a change in relations, which the administration has until now handled with painstaking delicacy.

Ms. Spengler said the students "were just appalled" at the way the administration has handled the situation.

"How this administration handled that day, as well as the war on terror, is worthy of discussion," he said.

But even if the administration had handled other aspects of the issue differently, it would still have been necessary to subject Iraq to a test.

They care little about the issue, but it is a political hot potato the administration would just as soon not handle before the next election.