Speaking a month after the Democratic Party had recaptured majorities in both houses of Congress, and just following his own resignation as Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld suggested that a new 9/11 could be the corrective for American complacency:

“This President’s pretty much a victim of success. We haven’t had an attack in five years. The perception of the threat is so low in this society that it’s not surprising that the behavior pattern reflects a low threat assessment. The same thing’s in Europe, there’s a low threat perception. The correction for that, I suppose, is an attack. And when that happens, then everyone gets energized for another [inaudible] and it’s a shame we don’t have the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the threats…the lethality, the carnage, that can be imposed on our society is so real and so present and so serious that you’d think we’d be able to understand it.”

–are you angry yet?