>After watching the politics for a few months, I am less
>optimistic.
>
>What you call 'silver linings' I saw as political
>opportunities. Silver linings isn't the right term; I don't
>think I used it. It suggests some redeeming feature of what
>was clearly without any.
I think there is one real silver lining. It seems to me that the religious right is becoming a real casualty of the WTC bombings.
There is precedent for this. Before WWII, America was a deeply racist and sectarian country. A good case can be made that the USA in the 1920's and earlier was more anti-Semitic than Germany was. After WWII, anti-Semitism was politically pretty untenable in the US, and I think WWII was a major factor in the public's relatively quick acceptance of the civil rights movement. Fighting the Nazis meant having to repudiate what the Nazis stood for.
If the WTC bombing really made Americans reconsider backing terrorists, dictators and lunatics abroad, that would be a truly wonderful thing. Alas, I doubt it will go that far.
Scott Martens