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And then there’s Vice President Cheney’s grotesque claim that the country will be hit again by terrorists if the electorate chooses John Kerry.

So here’s my question. It has been three years since al-Qaida struck New York City. Before that, the last foreign terrorist attack on U.S. soil — not counting a lone Palestinian gunman who killed a tourist at the Empire State Building — was the one in 1993. If three years without an attack validates George Bush’s policies, what do eight years without one do for Bill Clinton’s? If a three-year respite makes Bush a hero, what does an eight-year respite do for his predecessor?

So, while I am appalled at the cynicism the White House shows in claiming three years without an attack as proof the president has terrorists on the run, I’m even more appalled at the naivete some of us show in buying it. Have the lessons of Sept. 11 gone unlearned even at the cost of 3,000 lives? Can we really afford to be as oblivious and smug as we were?

What Bush did was to invade a nation with no known connection to the terrorist attacks. There are those who believe that in doing so he only inflamed Islamic radicals, confirming their most paranoid fantasies about our evil intent, thereby increasing rather than decreasing the likelihood of a terrorist attack.

Consider the military and intelligence experts interviewed in the October issue of The Atlantic. As one tells reporter James Fallows: “In my view, we are much, much worse off now than when we went into Iraq. That is not a partisan position. I voted for these guys.“

It’s unsettling to know that some of us have bought into the fantasy that in toppling a desert tyrant, we struck some sort of defining blow against terrorism.

How big a mistake that was may become tragically clear some awful morning yet to come.

As one joker put it, Osama bin Forgotten. But this much I guarantee you: He has not forgotten us.

From an opinon piece here.