Who has done a better job of keeping the country safer - George Bush or Barack Obama? Well, as soon as it we make it past the morning of 9/11, then Obama will have officially kept us safer longer than George Bush did when he entered office. It's empirical. You can't argue with it.
One of the contributors to our show, Malcolm Fleschner, made this point to me. I found it rhetorically enjoyable. Of course, in reality the circumstances are different and you can't necessarily compare one time period to another. And Bush supporters could even make an argument that we have not been hit on Obama's watch because of what a great job Bush did to keep us safe earlier.
But that leads us to the second point about 9/11. Republicans would love to take credit for the safety we are enjoying under Obama, but do you think that they would say the same thing if the shoe was on the other foot? If we were attacked right now, do you think a single one of them would say it's because Bush didn't do enough to keep us safe on his watch? Not one, right? Do you think a single one of them would say that it wasn't Obama's fault because it's too early in his administration? Not one, right?
In fact, so far they have done nothing but the exact opposite. They have blamed every single thing on Obama. The economy, the deficit, unemployment and even the Afghanistan War. It's all Obama's fault in less than nine months.
Do you remember what they said when we got hit by the worst terrorist strike in US history on this same date in Bush's first term? Bush could not be blamed at all! It was far too early in his administration! It was considered nearly unpatriotic to suggest such a thing. No one could blame him for anything that happened before 9/11 in his first term.
Now, do you think they've used that same standard for Obama? No one in their right mind could think that. Perhaps the media should keep that in mind as they evaluate what Obama has done so far and what Bush failed to do at this point in his administration. We could call that the 9/11 standard.
UPDATE: We put this up on AOL as a poll. "Who has kept us safer through the first eight months of their term?" You're not going to believe the results. Click here to vote and see the poll results so far.