Bob Kolasky is the former managing editor of IntellectualCapital.com. E-mail him at bkolasky@yahoo.com.

The headlines coming out of the second presidential debate in Winston Salem, N.C., between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush were as straightforward as they were uninspiring. "A timid Gore agrees often with a relaxed Bush," was one consensus. "Bush delivers a strong foreign-policy performance," read another.

But those themes, which now have become conventional wisdom, were only part of what happened as the two candidates joined Jim Lehrer in sitting around a pseudo-kitchen table. And neither was necessarily correct.

The first half of the debate, held in the midst of the continuing violence between Israel and Palestine, focused on foreign policy. While Bush and Gore found much to agree on, those agreements were much less significant than the foreign-policy question they did not agree on. And in that disagreement, Bush proved himself incapable of displaying a "compassionate conservative" approach to foreign policy.

Defining "the nation's interests"

Lehrer started the debate by asking Bush for guidelines on how the Texas governor would, if elected president, exercise American's enormous power abroad. In reply, Bush gave a version of his standard answer to that question, which is really no answer at all. "What's in the best interests of our people? When it comes to foreign policy, that'll be my guiding question. Is it in our nation's interests?" Bush said proudly.

He continued: "Peace in the Middle East is in our nation's interests. Having a hemisphere that is free for trade and peaceful is in our nation's interests. Strong relations in ... Europe is in our nation's interest."

Bush consistently claims that his foreign policy would be national-interest based, but he does so without exactly expressing what is in our nation's interests. America's interests should define American foreign policy, he says. Of course, Gore would say the same thing. A presidential candidate who says that he will conducted a foreign policy based on "the nation's interests" is not all that helpful. What is necessary is an enunciation of what he identifies as those interests.

But first a definition of what the phrase "national interest" entails.

The July 2000 report "America's National Interests," released here at Harvard by the Commission of America's National Interests -- an august body that included Sens. Bob Graham, D-Fla., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan., as well as MIT economist Paul Krugman and Bush advisers Brent Scowcroft and Condoleeza Rice, among others -- described one component of it as such: "Vital national interests are conditions that are strictly necessary to safeguard and enhance Americans' survival and well-being in a free and secure nation." The commission differentiated vital national interests from extremely important or merely important national interests.

A moral identity?

Bush has a view that is less expansive than Gore about what the national interests entail. And it is one that essentially echoes the commission's definition of criteria for choosing a vital national interest. He is squarely in the realist camp when it comes to determining America's national interests. Because of that, the areas that he says are priorities -- the Middle East, Asia, Europe, the Western Hemisphere -- are important to him for traditional reasons.

These are the areas of the world that have the potential to threaten America's political, economic or security stability. In saying that the United States should not have intervened to stop genocide in Rwanda, as he did in the debate, Bush made clear that morality should not be given equal weight in the equation.

Genocide in Rwanda? A million Tutsis dying in a faraway land? That does not threaten us directly, Bush would say. America does not have the political will to get involved, those Hutu spears are not being used on Americans, and besides, how does it threaten the stock market? Genocide is really sad -- "no one liked to see it on our ... TV screens," Bush said -- but we did the right thing by not taking direct action, he maintains.

On the other hand, Gore, who was vice president in an administration that allowed the Rwandan atrocity to occur on its watch, argued for a moral component in deciding when the United States should use its power. "I see our greatest ... national strength coming from what we stand for in the world. I see it as a question of values," Gore said.

He defended the concept of nation-building and said about America's power: "I think that in the aftermath of the Cold War, it's time for us to step up to the plate, to provide the leadership: leadership on the environment; leadership to make sure the world economy keeps moving in the right direction." Gore did not explicitly say we need to express moral leadership -- and even supported the Clinton administration's stance on Rwanda -- but he made clear that he is much more interested than Bush in considering morality on foreign policy issues.

Accepting responsibility in an American age

The debate over whether to consider values in setting foreign policy is much older than either Bush or Gore -- and people more eloquent than the two of them have come to differing conclusions. It is not going to be settled anytime soon, nor should it. Still, it is hard to accept that in the 2000 campaign, there are two people running for president who do not think preventing genocide rises to the level of justifying American military involvement.

As scholar Samuel Huntington has written, our "national interest derives from national identity." The opposite also is true: America's inaction in Rwanda was a case where America's identity was sullied. And the strictly interest-based foreign policy that Bush advocates is one in which the country's identity is tied simply to economic, political and safety concerns.

In a period where America is the preponderant power in the world, where we have blessedly few direct threats, where we speak about living in a global age, it is no longer acceptable not to equate moral concerns with political and economic ones. We like to that the world is in the American age. If that is true, then America has a responsibility to provide moral leadership and, when necessary, moral action.

Rwanda, and any future genocide, demanded action for morality's sake. Gore is right to argue that we need to consider our values when we look outside our borders. He has yet to prove that he will, if elected, but at least he is making the argument.

George W. Bush, on the other hand, asks us not to "judge his heart." Sorry, governor, this time I am.