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During yesterday's appearance before Congress, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted for the first time that it was the president himself who had blocked the DoJ probe into his "terrorist surveillance program." There's already been plenty of comment on this, so rather than repeat what others have already said, I'd like to focus on a different part of his testimony. Here's the quote:

This really bothers me. I know he meant this as a positive thing, but if you think about it for a minute or two, its really quite ridiculous. On September 12 this nation was in crisis. We had been attacked by a foe most of us (members of current and past administrations excluded, of course) did not even know existed, and we all expected to be attacked again soon. But since then, no doubt for a wide variety of reasons, a second attack on US soil has not come. Since Sept 12, 2001, the world has changed dramatically. Shouldn't our understanding of it have changed as well? Of course it should.

Let's try an analogy. Imagine if, in the summer of 1943, one of the top officials within FDR's administration had said something along the lines of "Today is December 8th. And tomorrow will be December 8th..." Would that have made any sense whatsoever? Of course not. Approaching the war as if every day had been December 8th, 1941 would have been disastrous.

This is real life, not Groundhog Day. Unfortunately, even that simple fact seems to be beyond them.

UPDATE: Andrew Sulivan, in a post thrashing Hugh Hewitt for an unrelated matter, says in a sentence what it took me an entire post to explain: