If you can keep it III

Six bombs go off in the Tube and only two people are killed? It's incredible how ineffective bombings seem to be. Of course, bombings in Israel indicate there's a learning curve, so we can probably expect worse.

It's been remarkable that there have not been such bombings here in the U.S. Remember when terrorists took a Russian school hostage? How easy it must be for people willing to die to do such things.

That it hasn't happened in the U.S. must be more testament that the terrorists are making a rational calculation that American public reaction will be directed at them and their interests instead of against their enemies, which is to say, an administration that will attack their interests. So now, we join the question: Can the Manhattan media turn the tide? How will the American people react? By fighting killers, or by fighting those who would stop killers? Watch the Democrats: If they openly attack Bush, they've lost their fear of being found on the wrong side of the war on terrorism; if they call for strong responses, they're still too weak to openly admit what they want: Bush to fail, even at the cost of America failing.

UPDATE: As anonymous notes, the numbers are up. Standaing at 37 now, no suprise if it goes higher. But it's not likely to reach Madrid's nearly 200 dead, and of course, order of magnitude-wise, it's about 1 percent of Sept. 11.

So far, the Dems are holding their powder. That's a good sign for the country. To be sure, the cycle time until they return to out-and-out Bush bashing at any cost will be short, measured in days, I would say, maybe even hours. But the fact that they felt the need to hold themselves in check at all is a sign that the Republic lives.

As for the terrorists, this isn't good for them. It's increasingly harder to be spectacular, and every attack shows weakness as well as strength. Perhaps these things are mere probing actions, to be tried every so often on the mere hope that, like a roll of the dice, this may be the time that you give the Fifth Columnists enough of a boost to prevail. But they also have the effect of hardening resolve. There simply isn't enough here to cause a loss of will, or to overcome the human desire for freedom that Iraqis are demonstrating every day.