David French: The ‘Idiots’ Were Right, Mr. Bannon

National Review ^ | September 11, 2017 | David French

[EveningStar]

How quickly some of us forget. How arrogant some of us have become.

Those of you old enough to remember the shock and horror of September 11, answer me this: If I had told you that the George W. Bush’s anti-terror policies would be so effective that after that terrible day jihadist terrorists would kill only three Americans on U.S. soil for the remainder of his term, would you judge his policies a success, or would you call him an “idiot” and hold him and his foreign-policy team in “complete contempt?”

I know my answer. I know the fair answer. In the days and weeks after 9/11, fear gripped America. We knew al-Qaeda possessed an immense safe haven in Afghanistan. We had no idea of what other plots might unfold next. After all, our intelligence agencies had just missed the worst attack on American soil since the British burned Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. We believed that the 9/11 attacks were the first of a series of assaults to come. That they never came is to the eternal credit of Bush and his team.

[Alberta's Child]

Obviously you are not a “W” fan, but the fact remains that he did implement programs that prevented any further Muslim extremist massacres on U.S. soil during the remainder of his term.

1. Can you name any of them?

2. Can you demonstrate how they accomplished this?

3. Did these "programs" include the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? (This was the basis of Bannon's comment that the author is referring to.)

[hawkaw]

Bush squandered resources that led to the bank collapse? Nope. I do agree his administration did squander a lot of resources though. However, it is a tough to pull off wins in war because the other side does actually have a say. I also think the bigger reason why O won was due to the African American vote and a very weak GOPe candidate in John McCain (McCain was just horrible in those debates).

[dirtboy]

Let alone the massive increase in domestic spying that only came to light via Assange. And that apparently was used to spy on the Trump campaign as well. In other words, many of the things we were assured would not happen due to increased surveillence ... did.