Events, Dear Boy. Events

Here's the opening paragraph of Michael Barone's latest column:

When asked what would affect the future, the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously said: "Events, dear boy. Events." The event this month that I think has done most to shape opinion was the arrest in London on Aug. 9 of 23 Muslims suspected of plotting to blow up American airliners over the Atlantic.

Michael isn't yet saying that Republicans are out of the woods yet but he's noted a change in the atmosphere surrounding this November's elections. With good reason. The nation's attention has been riveted since the foiling of the terrorist plot in London and Anna Diggs-Taylor's ridiculous ruling. In the aftermath of London, we found out that the NSA's Terrorist Surveillance Program played a major role in foiling that plot.

The contrast couldn't have been more damning for Democrats. Whether it was Russ Feingold crowing that the filibustering of the Patriot Act renewal was a "great moment for our Constitution and our democracy and a great moment in the fight against terrorism" or Harry Reid crowing about "killing the Patriot Act" to loud applause from fellow Democrats or Anna Diggs-Taylor's ruling in ACLU vs. NSA, the American people got a clear picture that Democrats aren't interested in doing everything possible to prevent terrorist attacks.

This shows people that there's really only one party that's committed to preventing attacks. It's just another area where Democrats just aren't in touch with the majority of people on an issue. Most people concede that another terrorist attack is inevitable. Democrats took that to mean that people didn't care if another terrorist attack happened.

What people meant was that the odds were that there'd be another attack but they also expected the federal government to do everything in its power to prevent the inevitable. They didn't say that we should stop vital prevention programs, whether it was SWIFT or the NSA's TSP or Able Danger or the Patriot Act.

The arrests were a reminder that there still are lots of people in the world, and quite possibly in this country, too, who are trying to kill as many of us as they can and to destroy our way of life. They are not unhappy because we haven't raised the minimum wage lately or because Bush rejected the Kyoto Treaty or even because we're in Iraq.

They've been trying to kill us for years, going back at least to 1983, when a Hezbollah suicide bomber killed 241 American servicemen in Lebanon. Then they attacked the World Trade Center, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole in Aden, all while Bill Clinton was president. Sept. 11 woke us up to the threat. The political acrimony of 2004 and 2005 and this year made it seem remote. The London arrests reminded us it's still there.

Thank you, Michael Barone, for that clarity. Terrorists don't hate us for all the things you cite; they hate us because (a) we exist and (b) because we don't agree with them. It's time that people woke up to that.

Another reminder that evil people were out to get us were the stories about the arrests of young Muslims with 1,600 throwaway cellphones. Let me refresh your memory on that story:

In Ohio, Houssaiky and Abulhassan were stopped by sheriff's deputies for a traffic violation Aug. 8, then arrested after the deputies found 12 cell phones, $11,000 cash, airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints in their car, authorities said. Prosecutors have not provided details about the passenger lists. Houssaiky's mother, Nada Houssaiky, said Tuesday the information was training notes from her job as an airport passenger service agent at Detroit Metro Airport.

The two men acknowledged buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in southeast Ohio, according to authorities. Investigators said they sold the phones to someone in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb.

The remaining charges stem from allegations that the two men initially gave deputies different names than appeared on their IDs. The men also initially said they were buying phones for a relative's construction business, then changed the story when deputies asked for contact information, Washington County Prosecutor James Schneider said. Within days of the Ohio arrests, three Palestinian-American men from Texas were charged in Michigan after nearly 1,000 cell phones were found in a van they were driving. In the Michigan case, the FBI said Monday that it had no indication that the men had any ties to known terrorist groups.

People not living inside the Beltway noticed and they cared about these arrests because they know their lives are at risk. That's why people are rethinking their vote for Democrats:

Other pollsters are finding that no matter how negative voters are about the Republicans who control both houses of Congress, less than a majority think the Democrats would do a better job of governing. Moreover, many voters who say they will vote for a Democrat in November also say their vote is not definite.

The truth is that there isn't much chance for a sizeable vote drop for Republicans but there's a healthy chance that there will be a sizeable drop in Democrats' popularity.

Factor all these things together and it's obvious that there's an atmosphere change happening across the country.

I suspect that Democrats won't like the change.

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Posted Monday, August 28, 2006 10:30 AM

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