Among the many Big Lies the Bush Regime will use to try to win re-"election" in the fall is the lie that the Bush White House is uniquely qualified to protect America from terrorists.

I just came across this comment on an online forum, which is typical of what the Brainwashed Right wants to believe:

While Clinton was president, a man named John O'Neal [sic], in the upper eschelons of the FBI, was doing everything in his power to get the bureau to shift its focus from domestic crime to Islamic terrorism as the major threat to the US.

In fact, during the last couple of years of the Clinton Administration there WAS a shift of focus from domestic crime to Islamic terrorism as the major threat to the U.S. It was the BUSH REGIME that took the focus AWAY from a threat of Islamic terrorism.

• In July 1998 Clinton directed the Department of Defense to charter the U.S. Commission on National Security, which would also be called the Hart-Rudman Commission. This commission reported in February 2001 that there was a clear threat of terrorism on American soil. In the spring of 2001 there was widespread bipartisan support in Congress for enactment of many of this commission's recommendations. THE BUSH REGIME SHUT DOWN ALL CONGRESSIONAL ACTION.
• When the Bushistas took over power in January 2001, the departing Clinton Administration tried to make them aware of the threat of terrorism, and the Bushies ignored them.

"One ... meeting took place in the White House situation room during the first week of January 2001. The session was part of a program designed by Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, who wanted the transition between the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations to run as smoothly as possible. With some bitterness, Berger remembered how little he and his colleagues had been helped by the first Bush Administration in 1992-93. Eager to avoid a repeat of that experience, he had set up a series of 10 briefings by his team for his successor, Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Stephen Hadley.

"Berger attended only one of the briefingsthe session that dealt with the threat posed to the U.S. by international terrorism, and especially by al-Qaeda. "I'm coming to this briefing," he says he told Rice, "to underscore how important I think this subject is." Later, alone in his office with Rice, Berger says he told her, "I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject." -- Michael Elliott, "Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented," Time, August 12, 2002

• In July 2001 [WHILE BUSH JUNIOR WAS PRESIDENT!] John O'Neill was barred by bureaucrats in the U.S. Justice Department from returning to Yemen to continue his investigation of the Cole disaster. According to some accounts, he complained that his investigation into Al-Qeada was shut down due to pressure from the Saudi government and oil interests. O'Neill decides to retire from the FBI. He accepted a position as chief of security at the World Trade Center in New York. He died in the World Trade Center on September 11.
• "[W]hile there's always been constraints on investigating Saudis, under George Bush it's gotten much worse. After the elections, the agencies were told to 'back off' investigating the Bin Ladens and Saudi royals, and that angered agents." -- Greg Palast, BBC Newsnight, November 7, 2001
• Meanwhile, intelligence had been streaming in concerning a likely Al Qaeda attack. "It all came together in the third week in June [2001]," [Richard] Clarke said. "The C.I.A.'s view was that a major terrorist attack was coming in the next several weeks." On July 5th, Clarke summoned all the domestic security agencies--the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard, Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the F.B.I.--and told them to increase their security in light of an impending attack. [Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, January 14, 2002]