Sooner or later, you figure out the bias

Here's a San Francisco Chronicle article that starts off as a 9/11 memorial and then rapidly changes course. First, the 9/11 homage:

Four years ago this morning, the nation's priorities changed. As rescuers tore through the rubble of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, President Bush vowed that fighting terrorism would be the central focus of his presidency.

Then the tally of the cost of war:

The nation has twice gone to war; more than 2,000 American soldiers have died, and many more Iraqis and Afghans have been killed. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent; security barriers have been erected; air travel has become an ordeal; and Americans have adjusted to a new way of life.

Then the acknowledgment that this cost has almost certainly been worthwhile, if preventing further terrorist attacks with thousands of victims is the goal:

And since the late summer of 2001, not a single terrorist has struck the United States.

Then the article gets really interesting. We identify the real enemy: that pesky, sneaky, mean-spirited Mother Nature:

Instead, on the fourth anniversary of the nation's worst terrorist attack, America is confronting an even deadlier calamity, brought on by Mother Nature. Hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- are dead along the Gulf Coast. Billions of dollars will be spent rebuilding New Orleans and the surrounding area, and the Bush administration is preoccupied with another form of disaster.

(I'll just note here, without any disrespect to the thousands of destroyed homes, hundreds of destroyed communities, and the uncounted dead, that this article acknowledges, in side-ways fashion, that Katrina probably left fewer dead than did 9/11.) Given evil Mother Nature, we learn that "some" are saying we should spend more money on preparing for natural disasters and less on war:

The cruel irony has prompted some to question whether the country's obsession with terrorism has left it vulnerable to other disasters. Rather than credit the administration for staving off terrorist attacks, many believe that unreasonable fears borne from the Sept. 11 attacks drove the country, and its leaders, to overreact to the terrorist threat and divert precious resources from the near-certain catastrophes of nature.

It's only after you've read this paragraph that you learn who the "some" are: George Soros. Yes, that George Soros:

Financier George Soros told 1,000 participants in a Washington terrorism conference last week that the so-called war on terrorism has "done more harm than good. ... It has diverted our attention from other vital" missions.

Now, what I'd like to say here is that I have no problem with preparing for natural disasters. The Bookworm household is bolted to its foundation, we have gazillions of bottles of water, and I hoard canned food, because I live in earthquake country. But lets get a few facts straight about what happened in the Gulf Coast. Nothing could have been done to protect the people in places like Biloxi or Waveland. Short of building everyone a concrete bunker, if you live in Hurricane territory, a Class 4 will periodically come along and huff and puff and blow your house down. The real finger of economic blame is being pointed at New Orleans. But it turns out that that finger is mis-pointed. Huge amounts of government money have been allocated to N.O. to shore up the coastal defenses, only to fall prey to graft and greenies. And as needs no rehashing here, there were expensively thought-out plans in place; it's just that N.O.'s self-promoting, finger-pointing, hysterical mayor, and Louisiana's completely passively, territory-protecting governor, never got around to implementing them. And so here we have the new argument against War: let's battle Mother Nature -- and let's just ignore the facts that demonstrate either that the enemy is too strong for any defense or that the soldiers in charge of that battle having been found wanting. And wait -- I forgot, it's all George Bush's fault.