Time to cool the rhetoric and get on with business

Vice President Dick Cheney's recent statement that the United States risks another terrorist attack if voters make the wrong choice in the November election was not surprising, given the nastiness of the presidential race, but it certainly was unfortunate.
Such rhetoric simply undermines the civic discourse that is necessary as the nation attempts to find ways of preventing another terrorist attack on the mainland. Three years after that fateful day, the unity that was so evident as we mourned the loss of 3,000 innocent lives has been replaced by the kind of divisions in our society the terrorists wanted to create.
Thus, when Cheney said on Tuesday, "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States," the words were gasoline on the flames.
"This statement by the vice president of the United States was intended to divide us," said Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. "It was calculated to divide us on an issue of safety and security for the American people. It's wrong, and it's un-American."
Edwards challenged President Bush to repudiate Cheney's statement.
On the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when Arab terrorists commandeered airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington and a farm in Somerset, Pa., polls show that many Americans still believe the nation is no safer today than it was three years ago.
Unfinished business
Their willingness to ignore the progress that has been made both at home and abroad in going after the enemies of the United States stems from the fact that there is so much unfinished business.
Indeed, the special 9/11 commission formed to investigate why the United States was so vulnerable in 2001 and how the nation can avoid such attacks confirmed the fears of those who say that not enough has been done to make us safe.
But all is not lost. Through the efforts of Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Congress now has the opportunity to thoughtfully debate the 41 recommendations contained in the Sept. 11 commission report. McCain and Lieberman have offered a bill that enacts almost all of the recommendations, foremost of which is the creation of a Cabinet-level director of national intelligence position.
We have previously expressed our objections to having an intelligence czar with unprecedented powers and hope that members of Congress will fully explore the ramifications of such a move.
But there are other aspects of the report that deserve to be embraced fully, which Congress should have no problem doing.
It is clear that the uncertainty on the part of many Americans over the security of the nation stems from the federal government's failure to act expeditiously on such issues as border control and immigration. Congress now has a chance to change that perception and thereby reassure the public.