The Bush administration took advantage of the new fear environment and stoked patriotism to push its National Missile Defense (NMD) and other military projects that had absolutely nothing to do with combating al Qaeda and terrorism, but which neither the media nor Democrats contested...

One of the remarkable phenomena in this crazy political environment has been the Republican administration’s success in getting President George Bush portrayed as the person who the citizenry can rely on to protect their security interests. This is amazing, given the Bush record and plans. I will argue that he has been a calamitous failure on security issues up to now and that he is busily engaged in sowing the seeds for security disasters in the future. In saying this I am using security in the narrow sense, concerned only with threats of terrorist and military attack. If we extend the concept to encompass the security of the U.S. citizenry from threats of unemployment, pension loss, lack of medical insurance, street crime, security state abuses of civil liberties, breakdowns in electrical, water, or transportation service, or damage to health resulting from environmental degradation, the Bush threat to security is overwhelming. 

Bush has gotten away with this image of security-savior by stoking fears, stirring up patriotic ardor, manufacturing wars—or rather invasions of small and virtually defenseless countries—and strutting about looking very grave, pronouncing momentous words attempting to evoke Churchillian grandeur (“I will not yield; I will not rest; I will not relent in waging this struggle for freedom and security for the American people