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For all the big talk, then, 9-11 appears to have changed nothing for the Bush administration. Their priorities remain the same as before the attacks: missile defense and Iraq, symptoms of a state-centric worldview incapable of really grasping global terrorism. The only difference was that they started saying their policies were directed at counter-terrorism. John Kerry was on the right track in his Feb. 27 national security speech: "I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the War on Terror; I believe he's done too little." The sentiment is exactly correct, and needs to be repeated. Often. And with specifics.
The Madrid attacks seem to have hurt Spain's conservative governing party badly at the polls, and rightly so. When bad things happen under a government's watch, the officials responsible ought to be held accountable. The American right is quite correct to say that the terrorist threat remains serious; this is, however, less a reflection of our enemies' strength than of the simple fact that the Bush administration hasn't bothered with doing much of anything about it, preferring to offer tough talk as a rhetorical smokescreen for an unrelated agenda. Don't they know there's a war on?
Indeed.