When he took office, Bush stopped Clinton's anti-terrorism plan dead in it's tracks and cut funding to counterterrorism programs. Now, two years after the atacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Bush administration has actively hindered the panel set up by the administration itself to investigate the security failings that led to the attacks. I don't feel safe knowing that our president placed tax cuts and personal politics in a higher priority than defending this country.

Bush has failed to find either Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. These two cretins are still running around inciting followers to inict harm on us and our allies. They may be on the run, but I fear Osama is far from being incapable of reaching us again. I don't feel safe knowing that they're still out there plotting their revenge.

Two things I've always known are no more. No more than a distant memory, dissolving in a repeating vision of a shower of steel, glass, and ash. On September 11th, 2001, a symbol of America's ability to create came tumbling down like so many toothpicks, and with it, a belief in this great country's ability to protect its citizens from the chaos around us.

One of my most enduring childhood memories was my first trip to Chicago. Standing at the base of the tallest building in the world, I stood in awe of our ability to create the unimaginable; there before me stood a towering monument, thrusting impossibly high to the edge of the sky. I never forgot that. It drove me to an interest in architecture at an early age. I got my hands on every book I possibly could about cities and skyscrapers. I can't remember the first time I ever saw a picture of the second tallest building in the world. To me, the World Trade Center towers were always there, and always would be. Then one day, I stood in my boss's office and watched them fade away, in a slow, almost gracefully falling cloud. Something I have seemingly never not known is suddenly no longer there.