“We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.” —John Kerry, New York Times Magazine, October 10, 2004 “What American would not trade the economy we had in the 1990s, the fact that we were not at war and young Americans were not deployed?” —John Kerry, on Larry King Live, July 8, 2004 “During the decade of the 1990s, our times often seemed peaceful on the surface.Yet beneath the surface were currents of danger. Terrorists were training and planning in distant camps. . . . America’s response to terrorism was generally piecemeal and symbolic. The terrorists concluded this was a sign of weakness, and their plans became more ambitious, and their attacks more deadly. Most Americans still felt that terrorism was something distant, and something that would not strike on a large scale in America. That is the time my opponent wants to go back to. A time when danger was real and growing, but we didn’t know it. . . . September 11, 2001 changed all that. We realized that the apparent security of the 1990s was an illusion. . . . Will we make decisions in the light of September 11, or continue to live in the mirage of safety that was actually a time of gathering threats?” —George W. Bush, October 18, 2004