Tom, where you come up with the assumption that GWB was the only hope for a retaliation in Afghanistan is beyond me. Popular pressure would've forced (and rightfully so) any president from any party to have responded in Afghanistan and run the Taliban out of power.

History actually shows that Democrat presidents have never shied away from responding to attacks against the country and have actually been highly successful in their responses. I was never a big Al Gore supporter (he was barely the lesser of two evils at the time) but I have no doubts that he'd have done basically the same thing Bush did in regards to Iraq. Hopefully though he'd have stayed focused on the single country and we might have been in a better situation today.

Someday the light's going to come on.

Art