The whole point of Dick Cheney's ranting is not about the past, it is to set a marker in the ground so that the next terrorist attack can be used to destroy the Democratic Party and Obama. That is what it is for. People are missing this point.

If Obama is setting new anti-terrorism policy, he is responsible for what happens.

You are right.

Terrorist attacks are by an large unavoidable when this country's foreign policy for the last seven years consisted mostly of creating as many terrorists as possible. Convservatives' inability to understand that bombing a man's house, killing his family, and/or detaining him for years without charge, especially in a culture in which these violations of honor demand retribution, are going to create immense numbers of terrorists never ceases to amaze me.

Obama could increase the the size of the US military and intelligence budgets tenfold and there's still no chance that all terrorist plots would be foiled. The only logical course going forward is to stop creating new terrorists and take sensible precautions for preventing what we can and dealing with the inevitable attacks that slip through by those that we've already created.

For those of you conservatives who only listened to Rev. Wright's "God damn America" soundbite out of context, that was the point of the sermon it came from. 9/11 didn't happen because Al Qaeda "hates us for our freedom." It happened because the US has spent the last fifty or so years fucking the middle east up.

"Cheney suggested the only measurement of whether his approach was effective was whether the United States has been attacked again. This is a strong piece of evidence, and one he can boast about." I am very glad this was said. I live in New York City and people sneer at you if you say, "You know, there have been no attacks since 9-11 and that is something." Absolutely no credit is ever allowed the Bush team for anything!

I personally prefer Obama's approach, but I do wish there was less sneering from liberals. We are all feeling our way in this situation.

One almost wonders if their primary goal is simply to cause chaos, and use the blowback to seize power.

No, perish the thought, decent clean living people like Dick Cheney would never put the saftey of the American people at stake merely to make a powerplay.

I can do Bush Cheney one better. I've NEVER been attacked by a terrorist, therefore I'm qualified to direct terrorism policy.

The fact is Bush team did NOT keep us safe on 9/11. 9/11 happened ergo they ddi not keep us safe.

That they did something special to protect us after 9/11 is all speculation.