In case it might have slipped your mind, this entire controversy was based on a book and testimony from Richard Clarke that pounded on the premise that Bush did jack shit about terrorism compared to Clinton prior to 9/11. That when Bush took office, terrorism moved from a front burner to the back. The media has been pushing this for weeks, and is only now backing down to your "Bush pretty much continued on the same route" premise. You yourself realize that there wasn't a hell of a lot more that could have been done, particularly in the military regime.

If, in point of fact, Bush simply continued and maybe expanded Clinton's basic policies, I don't see where there was a massive failure on Bush's part alone, which is what everyone has been trying to paint this as. Hell, to listen to Clarke you'd think Bush piloted the planes himself.

To put it more bluntly, Clarke, his book, and his testimony, and the hearings themselves, were deliberately and with superb timing used as a battering ram by the Democratic Party to attack Bush, not as a way to figure out mistakes of the past and avoid them in the future. And it isn't working, particularly as more facts about Clarke's work over the past years are coming out.