The view from shell-shocked America 8 months after 9-11-----Better Dead Than Rude--May 24th, 2002

Column on the culture--  Better Dead Than Rude--John Derbyshire

• ..."There will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop it," FBI Director Mueller told the National Association of District Attorneys meeting in suburban Alexandria, Va. "It's something we all live with."
  
• Senator Bob Graham, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, speaking amid new warnings of attacks on the United States, confirmed reports that about two dozen "extremists" had recently entered America hidden in container ships and were now on the loose.
• Vice-President Dick Cheney told Meet the Press: "In my opinion the prospects of a future attack on the United States are almost certain."

..."Congress has authority to pass a law tomorrow asking aliens from suspect countries to leave."

...They might, for example, follow AUNT CLONER's advice and 

• politely ask all visitors from an obvious list of nations to leave. Nothing wrong with that: we are not, as a nation, under any moral, ethical, legal or constitutional obligation to play host to visitors from other countries. 
• Or our government might deploy the military on the borders, as they are entitled to (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8). 
• Or they might offer a bounty to any citizen who reports a visitor overstaying his visa, or who files a report leading to a terrorism-related conviction. 
• There are all sorts of things they might do.

On the premises stated above — that the administration is not composed of liars or fools — it can only be the case that they do not do any of these things because they believe them to be politically impossible. 

They believe, in other words, that the American people would not stand for seeing (to take one example) Saudi visitors and students being asked to leave. 

Or, at a minimum, they believe that such actions, if initiated, could be spun by skillful operators to the great political disadvantage of the administration.

...And I am sure they are right. 

Actions that our government might take, and laws that our representatives might pass, none of them obviously unconstitutional or inhumane, are just not politically possible. 

Cheney and Co. believe they have done everything that they can, in all political possibility, do, and I think their belief is correct. 

And: "There will be another terrorist attack" (Mueller). 

And: Two dozen extremists are on the loose (Graham). 

And: "The prospects of a future attack on the United States are almost certain" (Cheney).

• The state we have sunk to, after 30 years of political correctness, is that we would rather permit ourselves and our fellow citizens to be slaughtered by lunatics than run the risk that we might hurt the feelings of foreign guests...Read all.