Daily Inspiration Quote by Sidney Blumenthal

Blumenthal is doing two things at once: indicting the Bush administration’s priorities and exposing the petty psychology that can warp national security. The line hinges on a quietly brutal premise - that terrorism wasn’t dismissed because it was unknowable, but because it was narratively inconvenient. By framing it as “a secondary issue” and, more pointedly, “associated with Clinton,” he suggests a governing culture where threat assessment is filtered through partisan branding. Terrorism becomes less an objective danger than a piece of political property: a “Clinton issue,” like a policy folder you’d rather not be seen carrying.

The repetition - “associated with Clinton… One of those Clinton issues” - is not accidental. It mimics the eye-roll of insider Washington, the reflexive tribal sorting that turns complex problems into team colors. The subtext is about status and legitimacy: to treat terrorism as urgent would be to validate the previous administration’s framing, to concede continuity rather than rupture. That’s a hard thing for a new presidency, especially one elected on the promise of a different agenda and a different set of enemies.

Context matters: Blumenthal is speaking from the post-9/11 vantage point, when the scramble to assign responsibility was as fierce as the scramble to secure the country. His critique isn’t just that warning signs were missed; it’s that institutional attention is a scarce resource, and political vanity can decide where it goes. The sting is that this isn’t portrayed as a singular blunder, but as an ingrained habit: governance as branding exercise, with consequences measured in body counts rather than headlines.