Let's not forget whose idea this war was. It certainly was not progressives or Democrats who asserted that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was, therefore, an imminent threat. This war is George W. Bush's baby, plain and simple.

"...the facts are that most people believed Saddam had WMD and he certainly did nothing to dissuade people from thinking that."

Yeah. Well, most people were demonstrably wrong, wether %33 percent of them know it now or not. Maybe we'll think twice the next time someone suggests we invade a country that hasn't attacked or in any way provoked us. Most people, in fact, were scared stupid after 9/11, and were prepared to trust President Bush and his administration when he told us, again and again, that Iraq had WMD. Surprisingly enough, Saddam Hussien did not do anything to dissuade people from thinking he had WMD, but, then again, Saddam Hussien is a murderous, genocidal, despot who can smile for the cameras while waging the Anfal campaign, so maybe we shouldn't have been putting too much stock in what he had to frigging say on the issue.

The right never met one of it's failures that it didn't pass off to the left. Not that it makes a whit of difference now (because we're all going to take a bite out of this crap sandwich, one way or another), but this is a right-wing screw-up, all the way.

It would be incorrect to say that there were no left wing terrorists in this country. Still - the worst single terrorist attack on American soil was the work of right wing terrorists (the Murrah building bombing in Oklahoma City). Aside from that (or possibly eclipsing it in their total effect) the Ku Klux Klan was probably the most effective and resilient terrorist group in the history of the United States. Bank robbing crazies like the SLA and the Weather Underground, dangerous and criminal as they were, really take third place.

At any rate, neither right-wing nor left wing terror should be singled out as agreater or lesser threat; terror tactics should be unacceptable from any point on the political spectrum.

One salient feature of the Right has been it's pathological hatred of the Clintons, and the fervent belief that the majority of American agrees with them (which, as this article points out, is clearly not true). Right-wingers don't see this attack as a foolish strategy, they understand it as a natural fact; they blame Clinton for pretty much everything anyway, so blaming him for 9/11 is not a great stretch.

What becomes a problem for Bush is when the two ideas that Right-winger's have about 9/11 collide. On one hand, there is the idea that nobody could have, in any way, anticipated the 9/11 attacks, and that there is a "pre 9/11" world in which such attacks are inconceivable, and a "post 9/11" world, where we are now. On the other hand, we have the sentiment that is commonly expressed in Right-wing circles and that also found it's way into the mainstream through "The Path to 9/11". This is the idea that Clinton, while he was president, did not do nearly enough to neutralize Osama Bin Laden and made a grave error in not recognizing Bin Laden as a potential threat. These ideas can both swim comfortably together in the sea of Right-wing thought and opinion, which generally holds Bush in high regard and always seeks to vilify Clinton. But among the rest of us, they are incompatible. Surely, if Bush was unaware of even the concept of a serious terrorist threat, then Clinton is also blameless. Of course, the fact is that the threat posed by Bin Laden and Al Quaeda did not require a paradigm shift to identify. Clinton and his national security personell were doing all that was politically possible, at the time, to kill or capture Bin Laden. When the charge is levelled at Clinton that he didn't do enough, it begs the question; "did Bush do enough to get Bin Laden?", which must be followed by the obvious answer.

It would seem obvious that it is potentially toxic to attack Clinton on what he could have done to prevent 9/11. But when you are dealing with the Right wing, their zeal in laying every conceivable high crime and misdemeanor at Clinton's feet overides their common sense. It would be irony of the highest order if this brought the Democrats a victory.

Another one bites the dust

Uh

Another one bites the dust

Huh huh

Another one bites the dust

Yeoowwwww

Another one bites the dust

Hey hey eh lay-uh-lay-uh-lay-uh-lay-uhhhh