"They stopped lots of stuff they knew to look for, mostly things that didn't require as much cooperation or imagination"

I don't think you can make such a generalised sweeping statement like that, Strick.
They stopped all that lot of other stuff by joining dots as well, I would imagine.

I don't doubt for one minute that Bush is doing more to get his house in order these days, than what was the case pre 9/11, but has anything really changed as far as the perceived threat is concerned? If the imagination was already there to envisage all sorts of other kinds of threats, short of getting attacked by aliens, I mean how much imagination does it take, and how much of it do we allow our leaders and their advisors to be lacking in, before we start calling them total buffoons?

'The Buck Stops Here' That's what Truman had the guts to accept as being one of the perks of his job. Encapsulated in those four words is an ready admission of the frailties of being in Government; the acknowledgement as it were, that to err is human. But whose responsibility is it ultimately?
9/11 happened on George W. Bush's watch, Strick. His subsequent crusade, so aptly called 'The War On Terror' was as naive as it's catchy title is... 'catchy', I suppose. It might be difficult for you to imagine how utterly pretentious and arrogant that kind of a declaration sounds to people who really know the futility of making such statements, but believe me, when I first heard those words uttered, I shook my head in disbelief.

Bush's crowd didn't join up the dots in the 200 odd days leading up to September 11, that much we know.
If they had a 'painting by numbers' book, would they have done any better, I wonder?

Jim