In honor of Thursday’s presidential debates, this editorial will say nothing that you haven’t already heard.

In case you missed last Thursday’s debate between President Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John Kerry, we have included a short synopsis for you.

Bush: My opponent is a flip-flopper. He voted for the war in Iraq, but is against supporting the men and women he sent there. The people know where I stand.

Kerry: The president made a colossal error of judgment when he decided to send American troops into Iraq, and he did it without the support of the United Nations and without strong support from our allies.

Decide for yourself: Did this come from the debate itself or from a stump speech delivered during one of many campaign stops in our little swing state?

As the candidates met for the first time onstage in Coral Gables, Fla., last week, Americans tuned in, expecting the intensity of a brutal campaign to be matched by a heated debate — if that’s what you could call it, since the candidates weren’t actually addressing each other — on foreign policy and security.

Oops. We mean Iraq, which took up nearly two-thirds of the discussion. They barely touched on North Korea, nuclear weapons in Iran and trouble in Sudan.

There are 192 independent states in the world, almost all of which have diplomatic relations with the United States. Foreign policy involves relationships with many of those countries; to a large extent, security also involves domestic security.

Neither candidate offered a plan for homeland security, for border protection, for immigration control.

The presidential debates allow voters to see the candidates side by side, to compare and contrast policies and, hopefully, to decide which candidate is best.

Voters were given nothing new. Almost every word has been uttered before on the campaign trail.

And this campaign trail has already been muddied with bitter attacks. It has been focused on whether Kerry can make a decision and stick with it, whether Bush actually served in the National Guard.

And, of course, there is Iraq.

Iraq is important, but many domestic issues — like health care, education, jobs, poverty, prescription drug prices — have fallen to the bottom of the barrel.

Granted, this debate was not the place for those issues. But it was the place to talk about homeland security and elements of American foreign policy — like Israel and Palestine; like Afghanistan.

Americans have to make a choice on Nov. 2. But to make that choice, they have to know where the candidates stand.

We know what they think about Iraq. Now let’s hear what they think about something else.