The planning began as early as 1996. The attack was originally scheduled for as early as May or June of 2001.

The attempt to somehow blame this all on Bush--with the implied corollaries that Clinton was utterly blameless, and that somehow if Gore were president, the attacks would not have happened--has long ago entered the "flat earth" category.

In point of fact, it is highly unlikely that any president would have been able to stop the attacks, from 1996 onward, given the way they were carried out.

How a president would have, or did respond to the attacks, now that's an issue.

But I digress.

The actual point of my reply was to comment on Joe's post, which appeared to put the perception of threat from terrorists in the same class of paranoia with the perception of threat from Salem witches.