It IS just a nuisance, and Bush & Co. are spending way, way too much on it.

"Those who want freedom and security deserve neither freedom or security," the man said year back. "No one said life was either fair or free of risk," said another.

The US government has known for a very long time that this country was not immune to, or could be immune to, terrorist attack. I can cite case after case of terror in US cities -- only then it's called "crime." The bombing of a church in Alabama in the Sixties where little girls were killed, the Murraugh Federal Building, the drive-by shootings, the concrete overshoes, the cross burnings, Columbine, the disappearance of Hoffa, the ambush killing of Medgar Evers, the deaths of Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney (shall I go on?) -- these are, by any definition, terrorist acts in that they were intended to terrorize.

The US has not been free from terrorist attacks for a very long time. They have, however, been domestic vintages and we didn't take them for what they are.