The American Spectator

In a July 1, 2004 Opinion Journal column, Peggy Noonan pointed out a phenomenon that she was worried would hurt President Bush’s re-election prospects:

History has been too dramatic the past 3 1/2 years. It has been too exciting. Economic recession, 9/11, war, Afghanistan, Iraq, fighting with Europe, fighting with the U.N., boys going off to fight, Pat Tillman, beheadings. It has been so exciting. And my general sense of Americans is that we like things to be boring. Or rather we like history to be boring; we like our lives to be exciting.

Perhaps Noonan was two years early. I thought back to her article when reading today’s Washington Post cover story on how the so-called “security mom” vote was starting to shift toward Democrats. In particular, the following quote from Jo Ann Smith, a divorced Ohio mother , stood out:

“I am just totally disgusted with this war,” Smith said. “I understand terrorism and the threat, but I am sick of hearing about it.”

If this phenomenon holds true in November, I will be very scared for our country. If even people who know that there is a threat would rather try to tune it out as if it were an annoying construction noise, we’re in trouble.