True. But how you deal with it makes quite a difference. Imagine a greater president than Bush spinning it like this (I'm not good enough with rhetoric to make

True. But how you deal with it makes quite a difference. Imagine a greater president than Bush spinning it like this (I'm not good enough with rhetoric to make it a compelling speech though): "Today America mourns. Today we were attacked. Today terrorists tried to destroy our way of life. They tried to rob us of our sense of security, our liberty, our democracy. And yet today we stand united! We will not let them take away our values our freedom! We will find and persecute those that are responsible. But we will not fall for the cycle of hate and violence the terrorists have laid in front of us." This path would have been harder to defend against those crying for revenge. But it could have used the same patriotism and stubbornness that was used for war mongering in the alternative world we live in. And in hindsight we see how bad the results of that fear and violence politics were for America and for the world.