Circus for the masses. That's what Clinton was. A large number of his policies were mere continuations of Poppy Bush's.
Human societies have always been ruled by those who best exploit "scapegoating". Get the masses playing "smear the queer" and (1) you unite the masses, and (2) you can get away with ANYTHING. Osama is doing it. We're doing it. Create a really good boogie man, and the masses will entertain themselves for years bashing that pinata.
Meanwhile, legal precedents are being set that are going to rip the BoR in 2. Anyone who really thinks that things are going to roll back and be the same (i.e., the federales give up their snooping/secret search powers) is a fool trying to win at 3-card monte on the street.
Things are already changing in the gov't contracting field -- contractors' project managers of gov't contracts are starting to go through secret or top secret clearance processes, whether they deal with classified materials or not.
Its a whole new world. And too many of the naive fools here have no idea how much things are changing and will continue to change.
They'll probably never find Osama, and they'll probably never ever ever end the quest to root out all the terrorists' networks. He's the greatest thing to come along EVER for the federal government to usurp ALL individual and state powers. The beast is hungry. The beast is always hungry.