An ounce of prevention

President Nominates Michael Chertoff as Secretary of Homeland Security (excerpt from the President's nomination speech):

"Mike has also been a key leader in the war on terror. On September the 11th, 2001, he was managing the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, an 800-person operation devoted to enforcing our nation's criminal laws. In the days after September the 11th, Mike helped trace the terrorist attacks to the al Qaeda network. He understood immediately that the strategy on the war on terror is to prevent attacks before they occur."

Look at that last sentence. I'm glad that Mike understood that immediately! I mean, if you're going to prevent attacks, I think it's always a good idea to prevent them before they occur, rather than after they occur. Prevention is always much harder after the fact. Like, ummmmm, take September 11, 2001, for example...

Now I know it's easy to poke fun at sloppy speech writing, but I think that it points to sloppy thinking (and dangerously sloppy action). Or maybe this administration is so deeply sold on secrecy and spin that they truly believe that, for all practical purposes, they can prevent something after it's happened. (Like, say, an election, perhaps).

Hey, is that what Dick Cheney has been doing in that bunker...perfecting his time machine? Watch out, everybody...the South's gonna rise again!