Changes

How successful have the Republicans been so far? '''I don't think Democrats would have done any better,''' and let me put that in bold, but I certainly challenge any notion that the Republicans have got terrorism under control. "Republicans-can-fight-terror-Democrats-can't" is pure slogan, playing politics with national security, and oversimplifying a complex situation.

How successful have the Republicans been so far? '''I don't think Democrats would have done any better,''' and let me put that in bold, but I certainly challenge any notion that the Republicans have got terrorism under control. "Republicans-can-fight-terror-Democrats-can't" is pure slogan, playing politics with national security, and oversimplifying a complex situation.

*There have been no new major terrorist attacks in the U.S. But that doesn't mean anything one way or another. It was seven years from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing until 9/11/2001. You can't tell whether what's been done was effective or whether we've just been lucky.  

*There have been no new major terrorist attacks in the U.S. But that doesn't mean anything one way or another. It was seven years from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing until 9/11/2001. You can't tell whether what's been done was effective or whether we've just been lucky. (I don't even want to think about Poisson distributions and how many terrorist incidents you'd need to have per year to have statistical significance as to whether things were getting better or not).

*On December 17, 2001, Bush said "Osama bin Laden is going to be brought to justice.  It may happen tomorrow, it may happen in a month, it may happen in a year. But he is going to be brought to justice.  He's on the run.  He thinks he can hide, but he can't.  We've been at this operation now for about two and a half months, and we've made incredible progress."[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/text/20011217-4.html] The administration's has always stated its war aims so vaguely that you can never prove that they've shifted, but bringing bin Laden to justice was, absolutely, a major goals of the war on terror, and as nearly as I can tell the adminstration has successfully managed to change the subject.

*On December 17, 2001, Bush said "Osama bin Laden is going to be brought to justice.  It may happen tomorrow, it may happen in a month, it may happen in a year. But he is going to be brought to justice.  He's on the run.  He thinks he can hide, but he can't.  We've been at this operation now for about two and a half months, and we've made incredible progress."[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/text/20011217-4.html] The administration's has always stated its war aims so vaguely that you can never prove that they've shifted, but bringing bin Laden to justice was, absolutely, a major goals of the war on terror, and as nearly as I can tell the adminstration has successfully managed to change the subject.

*Homeland Security's response to Katrina was a reasonable test of the effectiveness of that organization.  

*Homeland Security's response to Katrina was a reasonable test of the effectiveness of that organization.