VICE PRESIDENT BIDEN IS SUFFERING FROM A LACK OF APPRECIATION

Vice president Joe Biden told CNN today that he guaranteed that we are safer today than at any time during the eight years of the Bush Administration, rebuking a statement made by former vice president Dick Cheney in an interview with CNN's John King last month, whereas he told CNN that he felt that some of the choices being made by the Obama administration were putting Americans at greater risk of another terrorist attack.

The statement made by Biden is, of course, incredulous at best, if not a little bit unfair to the obvious successful accomplishment of the Bush administration to avoid future attacks. Bush never could be denied at least that one fact. We were not attacked following that terrible day in September 2001, and that was due largely to the policies of the Bush administration. To deny that is just plain ridiculous. And to Cheney's point, there's also no denying that much of Obama's plan with regard to Iraq, his failure to call terrorists for what they are, his interest in closing down Gitmo and releasing terrorists—potentially onto American soil—are all meant to appease the world. President Obama is pandering. In a way, pandering does indeed put us at a higher risk in that it tells all the bad people in the world we'd rather be touchy, feely than get down to the business of doing what we need to in order to protect our interests.

I'll admit that the United States has a bit of a reputation problem in many parts of the world, and that you can lay a lot of that blame on the Bush administration if you'd like to. That said, since when has it ever been about what the rest of the world thinks? The rest of the world didn't have planes flown into its buildings. The rest of the world wasn't attacked. The president had a choice to make and he made it. And even if you argue that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, certainly there was no denying the combatant stance that was being taken by the Iraqi government, the refusal to allow inspectors in to ensure compliance with U.N. resolutions, and ultimately prove the lack of weapons of mass destruction. There was no denying that Sadam Hussein was an evil dictator bent of killing his own citizens and bringing turmoil, chaos, and fear to his own citizens as well as Iraq's surrounding countries.

If we are safer as a nation today it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the policies of the Obama administration and everything to do with the policies of the former. It has everything to do with the bringing together of intelligence and law enforcement agencies to better communicate and share information and manpower. It has everything to do with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and with tightened security efforts at airports across the nation.

Biden should be thankful.