A convenient definition of security.
Even if you allow for the narrative that “George W. Bush kept us safe from terrorism”–meaning THE SINGLE MOST DEVASTATING ATTACK ON AMERICAN SOIL somehow doesn’t count–it’s also not true that there were no terrorist attacks in the eight years after 9/11.
Because there were anthrax attacks within weeks after 9/11 that killed five people and infected 17 others, including a 7-month old child.
There were also the Beltway sniper attacks in 2002, which you can try to argue were not terrorist attacks so much as criminal spree killings, except John Allen Muhammad was charged and convicted of an act of terrorism, and his death penalty affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court under the aegis of anti-terrorism statutes.
There were also as-yet-unsolved bombings in 2008 of a San Diego courthouse and an army recruiting center in Times Square, as well as a handful of violent actions by the Earth Liberation Front.
What Rudy Giuliani is doing, what all Republicans do when they push this idea that we were safe from terrorists under the last Republican president, is create this highly specific definition of terrorism: “Definitely perpetrated by Muslim-identifying persons from another nation and causing catastrophic casualties.” Since we never experienced another attack on the level of 9/11, we must by this narrow definition view the Bush presidency as successful on the subject of “terrorism.”
Which is balderdash.
Creative Control 