No Worries

Fareed Zakaria is probably paid well as a pundit to say stuff like this:

Nine years after 9/11, can anyone doubt that Al Qaeda is simply not that deadly a threat? Since that gruesome day in 2001, once governments everywhere began serious countermeasures, Osama bin Laden’s terror network has been unable to launch a single major attack on high-value targets in the United States and Europe. While it has inspired a few much smaller attacks by local jihadis, it has been unable to execute a single one itself.

Not to say he doesn't have a point with some of the kneejerk security measures that border on a police state (cough, airports) and the crazy new levels of security in the workplace and public areas, which should be carefully scrutinized themselves, but thinking back this article appeared in the New York Times on July 10, 2001:

Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.

None of these beliefs are based in fact.

Just sayin'. As Krauthammer suggests, the push may be on to funnel the money back to liberaland. If so, one might think it would help to have noted elite pundits declaring the threat overblown so as to help pave our way back home.