In the summer of 1998 Al Qaeda bombed the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. At the time, I was a pre-school teacher. The mother of one of my students from the previous school year was killed in the bombing in Kenya. My former student and her sister would have lost their father also (who was also employed by State Dept) but for the fact that shortly before the blast he had left the building to go register the girls for the upcoming school year. Shortly after the embassy attacks, Clinton ordered air strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan that were presumably linked to Al Qaeda. And, of course, the entire nation rallied around him as one nation in support of the cause of taking out the people who murdered Americans in Kenya and Tanzania....NOT. No, the response was that he was "wagging the dog" (remember that movie?), he was condemned by conservatives, liberals and, especially, the so-called liberal media. They accused him of taking military action to divert attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And, so, he backed away from any further action against Al Qaeda. Imagine if, at the time, Clinton's enemies had not played petty politics and had instead rallied around the goal of capturing Osama bin Laden. Imagine if Clinton's enemies had cared more about the devastation caused by the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya and less about a blow job, cigars and a stained blue dress and the definitition of "is". It makes my blood boil when I think of it. The father of my former student was a broken man after he lost his wife. But he carried on for the sake of his girls. But after 9/11 I think he went into an even deeper state of despair. I see him from time to time and I just want to cry but also to scream at the sleazy journalists and politicians whose priorities were so phenomenally and tragically screwed up. Imagine a world without 9/11.