Am I the only one who was troubled by the news that five women we’ve come to know informally as “the 9/11 widows” are now stumping for John Kerry?

The women – New Jerseyans Kristen Breitweiser, Patty Casazza, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie Van Auken and Connecticut resident Monica Gabrielle – appeared with the Democratic presidential candidate last week to announce they were supporting him because, as Breitweiser put it, they believe “John Kerry will make the country safer.”

They’re certainly entitled to their opinion on that point – though at this stage, we have no idea whether either presidential candidate can make the country safer.

What we do know – or certainly should know by now – is that the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission are the most comprehensive, promising and concrete plans offered to date for increasing our safety. And the only way those recommendations can be implemented is if Congress votes to adopt them.

I suspect the widows, by and large, agree on that point. In fact, I suspect it’s one of the two main reasons they decided to support Kerry, who has vowed to adopt the commission’s recommendations if elected.

Their other main reason, I suspect, is that President Bush has co-opted Sept. 11, making his response part of his “stand strong for America” image. But Bush, while praising the commission, clearly supports only some of its proposals.

So that might seem like a good reason for the widows to embrace Kerry.

The trouble is, adopting those recommendations doesn’t rest solely in the hands of the nation’s top executive. It rests in the hands of Congress, two bodies made up of Republicans and Democrats. Getting them to come together on the particulars of the commission’s recommendations is going to require persuasion that transcends partisanship.

These five outspoken women – individually and collectively – have been seen for three years as a voice that spoke for Americans of all parties.

Now that’s no longer true. Because they have taken a political side, they have largely negated their value as salespeople for the commission’s recommendations.

This is sadly ironic, because it is very likely the Sept. 11 commission wouldn’t even have been convened without these women’s voices. Dissatisfied with the answers they got from the congressional investigation of that dreadful day, they relentlessly pressured the White House for months for an independent and more comprehensive investigation.

The White House did not want that. But these widows wouldn’t go away. Ultimately, they forced the president to give in.

The establishment of the Sept. 11 commission proved not only wise but essential. Its conclusions and recommendations were far more specific and sweeping than anything Congress had come up with. Thanks to its meticulous examination of evidence, thoughtful interviewing and painstaking analysis, we learned things we hadn’t known. The product of that commission was a comprehensive strategy for strengthening our safety.

The initial White House response was lukewarm. No surprise there, considering its initial stalling, its foot-dragging on producing documents and its reluctance to let administration members testify.

It seemed to take an astonishingly long time before it dawned on the White House that the man the president had picked to head the commission was not Tom Kean, mild-mannered, good-soldier Republican, but Tom Kean, pit bull.

The president has come to realize, wisely, that resisting the commission’s recommendations doesn’t cast him in the best light for a re-election campaign. He now says he supports some of those recommendations.

He still resists key elements, however, including giving a single overseer for the nation’s intelligence community power over all intelligence agency budgets.

So it remains an open question how much of the commission’s package will ever be adopted. Which is why the members of the now-disbanded commission have been working diligently to convince Congress and the public of its importance.

They realized they would be less effective in this effort if they were seen as representatives of one or the other major party. Therefore, extending the nonpartisan commitment they made when they were appointed, they vowed not to take active partisan roles in the presidential campaign.

None of the commissioners – five Democrats, five Republicans – took an active role in party conventions. None is engaging in any visible public campaigning. This has to be hard for people whose lives have been largely defined by active involvement in the political process. But this year, this time, they rightly concluded, there’s something more urgent at stake.

I, for one, was sorry to learn that these articulate and dedicated Sept. 11 widows didn’t come to the same conclusion.