The 9/11 blame game goes on and on and on… Democratic attempts to pin the blame tail on the Republican elephant have come to naught. The Clinton administration had 8 years to deal with the Islamist threat, while the Bush team had 8 months. The Democrats have found no smoking gun. Condi Rice’s testimony was eloquent and straightforward. Richard Clarke turned out to be a charlatan peddling a book and movie deal. The “PDB” just released by the White House has vindicated the President and his team. I don’t think normal, human complacency is a crime… not yet, at least. If it were, we’d all be in prison now.

The fact is, you and I and most Americans were complacent before 9/11 -- living with low unemployment and a booming stock market. What a wonderful but false sense of security. Only a few individuals, like Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson, saw the real threat posed by Islamism’s murdering thugs. At best, some found the Pipes and Emerson warnings as important reading, but not high on the priority list. At worst, these two respectable men were completely ignored as nut-cases. In a democracy, a government is only as good as the people that elect it. 20/20 hindsight is easy to claim credit for, but what were you or I doing about terrorism during the 1990s?

Those trying to pin direct blame on either Clinton or Bush are living in a fantasy-land of 20/20 hindsight. Before 9/11, the airline industry lobby would've adamantly opposed any increase in passenger security checks, because of increased costs. Remember that the airlines opposed tightened security even after 9/11. Passengers -- especially business travelers -- would've been up in arms over increased security. Remember that people had become accustomed to running through airports and boarding flights at the gate 10 minutes before departure. Would Attorney General Ashcroft have gotten -- or even asked for -- a Patriot Act before 9/11? Ask yourself this: Would you have accepted a Patriot Act before 9/11? I doubt it. And please don't lie about it. And I’m not asking the extreme left- and right-wing crazies that oppose everything. Would the Congress have allowed a Department of Homeland Security to coordinate and allow sharing of intelligence information between foreign (CIA) and internal security branches (FBI)? Not on your life. Democrats and Republicans alike would've quashed any such measures on the grounds that personal privacy would've been threatened. They would’ve asked, “Why do we need such measures? The Cold War’s over.” Would Americans have supported a PREEMPTIVE land invasion of Afghanistan and long-term nation-building effort before 9/11? No. Would Americans have supported massive increases in defense and homeland security spending before 9/11? You must be kidding. Congress was busy reaping the "peace dividends" resulting from the end of the Cold War. Only but a few saw 9/11 coming.

The truth is that the appeasement-based Democratic party doesn’t have any points to use against G.W. Bush. The current White House, despite its faults, is obviously committed to stamping out the cancer that is Islamist terrorism. The question is: Do you want John Kerry to be president and repeat history's mistakes? Remember Neville Chamberlain's peace treaty with Hitler? Remember what Hitler did to Britain after he broke this meaningless treaty, not to mention what the Furer did to the rest of Europe? Do you want to see John Kerry negotiating with terrorists and letting the dictatorship-dominated UN determine our safety? This is exactly what Mr. Kerry's constituency wants and what Mr. Kerry's own history proves.

Kerry keeps talking about "foreign leaders" that want him to be the US president. Presumably he means leaders unhappy with President Bush's head-on tackling of al-Qaeda. Maybe Kerry means Spain's new Socialist government that surrendered to al-Qaeda as soon as it was faced with a terrorist attack. Remember that Kerry tried to gut the US intelligence budget, a move that members of both parties wouldn't touch with a 10-foot poll. Remember that Kerry tried to sabotage progress in Iraq by voting against an $87 billion package to fund the war and help finance the country’s reconstruction. This is after Kerry originally supported the war. Kerry has flip-flopped on every major issue of our time. Senator Kerry claims the war on terrorism should be primarily a “law enforcement operation.” But wait a minute, Clarke and his Democratic allies claim they wanted to bomb Afghanistan before 9/11. So which is it, war or police action? Kerry went from being a Vietnam war “hero” to becoming a communist sympathizer overnight. In one bizarre incident, Kerry protested the Vietnam war by joining with a group of veterans in throwing their war medals over a fence near the U.S. Capitol. But it turned out later that he secretly kept his own medals and threw away someone else’s!?!?!?! How does this show integrity? Where are his medals now? They are hanging in his office. I don’t trust people who make such exaggerated swings in their allegiances. At least I know where President Bush stands.

The memo or “PDB” just released by the White House shows no evidence that the U.S. could’ve prevented the 9/11 attacks. First of all, the memo contains no evidence of a imminent strike against the U.S., nor does it mention plans for attacking the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, or the White House. It doesn't mention using hijacked planes as missiles. The memo does claim that al-Qaeda considered using hijacked planes as leverage to force the U.S. to release prisoners -- nothing like the 9/11 attacks. It provides no dates or evidence of an imminent threat.

It’s easy for arm-chair quarterbacks to now be experts in hindsight -- especially those who have absolutely no idea as to what it is like to bear the responsibility of leading the most powerful nation on Earth. The choice for the 2004 presidential election is clear: Pick an appeaser (Kerry) or someone (Bush) who’ll be consistent in fighting Islamist evil. Please make your decision carefully.