Do you feel safer today than you did before January 2000?

I was thinking about some things, as usual, on my AM run. What would life be like had Al Gore been selected President in 2000 instead of GW? Would we be in a similar predicament?

We cannot change the past, but there are a number of folks who stipulate publicly that they feel safer today than they did in 2000. Are they forgetting that the Attack on the Trade Centers and the Pentagon happened in September of 2001, on George W. Bush's watch?

This begs several larger questions:
1) If shrub and his clan were not supplanted into office, would the 9/11 incidents have happened?

2) Were/are the terrorists emboldened by the fact W was in office?

3) Or, more causally, did the terrorists act because W was on the throne of this monotheistic theocracy?

Lastly, 4) If any other person were in the Oval office, would we be in the current pickle we're in?

By the way, I finished Cornel West's book. I know, I know, you're sad that you won't be getting regular citations from that source. Let me leave you at least one more. I may post a few of the more powerful quotes as they become salient for us on the morrow or another day.

From page 29 of Democracy Matters:

The hallmark of political nihilism is the public appeal to fear and greed, and too much of American politics today has been reduced to such vulgar appeals. Just so, Bush promoted his irresponsible tax cuts by offering the largely chimerical promise of a child-tax rebate, and promoted his repressive Patriot Act by appealing to the fear of terrorism. A political nihilist is one who is not simply intoxicated with the exercise of power but also obsessed with stifling any criticism of that exercise of power. He will use clever arguments to rationalize his will to power and deploy skillful strategies, denying the pain and suffering he may cause, in order to shape the world and control history in light of the pursuit of power. The world nihilism may seem strong, but we saw President Johnson do this with claims about the Gulf of Tonkin for the Vietnam War and President Bush do this with claims about weapons of mass destruction in the invasion of Iraq.

End slice:

I have yet to get a full sense of the grief or remorse that those in charge should be feeling with the weight of so many innocent, dead souls upon their shoulders. Click on over if you dare to see an updated selection of various KIA or Wounded folks at the following location. Be warned, these pics are gruesome and gory - not for the faint of heart.

I am still not convinced that the ROI was worth the outlay and we are well in a hole in terms of sunk costs. The tax on our unborn grows daily.