Day 1,800 on the Osama Clock

Of all the things that George W. Bush has done to exploit our nation's tragedy on September 11, 2001, none brought him more political capital than his macho posturing in the weeks and months following the attacks. He stood on the rubble of the fallen World Trade Center and declared that the terrorists who attacked us would "hear all of us soon." A few days later, he invoked imagery of the Old West and, with steely resolve, said that he was committed to getting Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

And here we sit, exactly 1,800 days later with a civil war in Iraq, the Taliban still killing American troops in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden very much alive and running free to podcast threats against our country from a Dick Cheney-like undisclosed location.

President Bush seems to have missed one of the central tenets of being a real tough guy: That you're able to back up your words with action and, once you boast that you're about to open a can of whoop-ass on someone, that it actually happens.

- Bob Geiger