"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

John McCain has said of Barack Obama that, "Once again, we have seen that Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mindset." As opposed to, I guess, having a September 12th mindset...one that responds to the security needs  of the post-9/11 nation.

This is a flawed argument. 

First, I am not convinced that the September 12th mindset has made us, the nation, any more secure...lack of evidence (in the form of an attack) is not the same thing as evidence.  I am sure that the wider world and our position in it is less secure, and that the Constitution is currently being used by Antonin Scalia and Jonathan Roberts as a convenient place to record their golf scores.

Second, a pre-September 11th mindset is only a bad thing if that mindset follows the same path that our Bush White House/Republican led Congress chose.  A pre- September 11th mindset that seeks to more respectfully find a place in the big wide world for the United States without dividing, punishing, annexing, appropriating, and/or dominating might actually have resulted in a safer world, and nation, for all of us today.  Could 9/11 have been prevented...I doubt it.  The crazy, the fanatical, and the misguided are always going to do what the crazy, the fanatical, and the misguided are going to do.  But it's well after September 11th now, and there are still plenty of crazy, fanatical, and misguided people out there waiting for the chance to do us harm.

I, for one, would find a responsible September 10th mindset quite reassuring.