Obama's speech and the terrorist threat

It appears that Obama's speech is being widely panned as not enough, etc. Which is unfortunate. Obviously, there are some things that need to be done, primarily in the area of making assault weapons and explosives much harder to get a hold of, and vetting travelers and restricting immigration waivers from the "War Zone" (which I am enough of a realpolitiker to advocate should include Western Asia from Turkey to the Caucasus to Yemen east to India and the Easternmost of the "Stans", and west across Northern Africa from Egypt to Kenya across to Nigeria to Morocco). But it remains a FACT that terrorism is far less significant than the flu, auto accidents, or ordinary murder as a threat to the populace of the United States (64 deaths, total, since Sep. 12, 2001). It's terrible; it needs to be addressed, but we should NOT overreact. I believe had it not been for 9/11 there would not have been a second Bush/Cheney term, and, callous as it may seem, the Bush presidency was far more damaging to the USA than 9/11 itself.




I worry that, although in reality terrorism, awful as it is, simply is NOT an existential threat to the US, it will end up highjacking our whole political climate, AGAIN, and remove the focus from critical issues like income inequality, oligarchic control and and power of money in politics, infrastructure investment, universal health care, and, the real biggie, the REAL existential threat, conversion to a renewable energy future so we have a livable planet as the century progresses.