"But even if all public places were protected, the terrorists could simply shoot the guards and proceed with their attack. In practice, we can't protect everything, and we must remember that terrorists have their own priorities that lead them to concentrate on a limited set of targets."

This is true only if you're speaking of the "terrists" in the president's fantasies, a centralized al Qaida who are leading the Iraq insurgency, etc.

The real terrorists are countless factions of Islamic extremists, plus a number of religious and racial "identity groups" here at home, plus an odd assortment of cults, plus plenty of individual nutcases of all stripes, plus a whole bunch of wannabees. These people don't set priorities and think strategically. They rent Ryder trucks in their own names and charge three tons of fertilizer on the wives' credit cards. They hoard weapons. They subscribe to jihadist papers or anarchist publications or mercenary newletters. They publish hate letters or warnings of impending doom in the local paper. They start bogus mosques and churches to hide behind religious freedom.

It's easy for these people to fly under the radar because the attention is on Iraq, which had little to do with terrorism. We blew off four years and countless opportunities to figure out international and domestic terrorism because our government was run by a man who knows only one song and that song has only one note.

By the way, why do you think we rated well in marine security? Because we had an agency called the Coast Guard who has lots and lots of experience guarding the coast. As clever as DHS is at fouling things up, even they couldn't ruin the Coast Guard in four years. Of course, half the Coasties are deployed to support the Iraq boondoggle, so they're stretched pretty thin here at home.