pettygrudger,
Thanks for responding. My comment about "political hate" wasn't necessarily directed toward you, but toward those who have blamed Clinton for the WTC attacks (and yes, I have heard some say this -- they probably throw Hillary into the mix for good measure!) I'm glad to know your true thinking about the matter. As it happens, I agreed with everything you said:
More should have been done before, if the government wasn't paralyzed by it's rule-by-poll approach. The intelligence agencies were gutted and underfunded in their overseas operations (recetnly read an article about that also). Much more could have been done to help prevent these attacks. I think the government got the message this time, but it's sad it had to be done with such a great loss of life.
You know what's funny? A year ago, the right-wing was running on their usual lie of "less government" (it's a lie because government always grows, no matter who is in charge). One year later, everybody is saying to the government, "Save us!" How quickly people can realize what the role of the government is when trouble strikes. Guiliani, the firefighters, and the police were anything but taken for granted this past month.