A 9/11 Society or a July 4th Nation? [U]ltimately Sept. 11th is about them - the bad guys - not about us. We're about the Fourth of July," writes Thomas Friedman in an excellent piece that takes Bush to task for chiding Kerry for saying he wants our nation to be secure enough so that terrorism isn't our focus but merely a nuisance. His thesis:

The Bush team's responses to Mr. Kerry's musings are revealing because they go to the very heart of how much this administration has become addicted to 9/11. The president has exploited the terrorism issue for political ends - trying to make it into another wedge issue like abortion, guns or gay rights - to rally the Republican base and push his own political agenda. But it is precisely this exploitation of 9/11 that has gotten him and the country off-track, because it has not only created a wedge between Republicans and Democrats, it's also created a wedge between America and the rest of the world, between America and its own historical identity, and between the president and common sense.

Full article here.