This post really ticks me off, because it is, sadly, probably true.

Terrorism Threat Narrows Race (washingtonpost.com)

In this post-9/11 nation, New Jersey is perhaps the purest example of the terrorism differential. Tick off the usual hot-button issues here — education, the environment, gun control — and Democrat John F. Kerry leads by 20 percentage points. Then mention terrorism, and watch his lead shrink to single digits in the polls.

What’s so infuriuating about this is that this administration was asleep at the switch, due to partisan aversion to any matters the Clinton administration passed on, and an aversion to the idea that they could be hit; and an arrogance that they couldn’t possibly fail. Richard Clarke’s warnings (and those of other intelligence) went basically without raising so much as a meeting (ie. the August 6 PDB). And then people are led to believe by “tough talk” that we are in better hands with the Bush administration, the same administration that is trying to keep from the American people the questions and findings of the Senate Committee on INtelligence concerning the involvements of the Saudi government. The fact that Saudi Arabia is basically not called to account is kept from the public.

Further, the article ends with this quote from a New Jersey voter:

“I stood right here and watched those towers go down,” he said. “George Bush realized right then and there that we had to go after the terrorists where they live. I’m with him all the way.”

He went to Afghanistan, lost Bin Laden, and then diverted resources to Iraq to fight an unneccessary war that only widens the appeal and cause for Al Quieda. Some “protection”. They’ve made America MORE of a target.