When George W. Bush was elected President of the United States, he was only supported by sixty to seventy percent of voters in this country. To many – including myself – he seemed arrogant and cocky, and a bit too sure of himself. And when high ranking Republican Senator James Jeffords defected to the Democrats, giving them control of the Senate before Bush concluded his first one hundred days in office – I wondered if President Bush would make it to the end of his term. But then something happened that changed everyone’s lives forever – and everyone’s opinion of the President – September 11th.

After that horrible day, everyone turned to President Bush to lead this country through one of its toughest times – and lead he did. In fact, Bush did such an amazing job as Commander-In-Chief during the first few months following September 11th that many people changed their opinions of him and became his supporters rather then his critics – myself included. As a matter of fact – in November of 2001, I wrote a column about Bush called, “I Stand Corrected”, in which I rescinded anything negative I wrote about him and praised him for his leadership through such a tough time.

But now, nearly nine months after the attack on America that terrible Tuesday morning, there are reports circulating that President Bush was not only warned of the September 11th attacks – but that he knew the attacks were coming – and did absolutely nothing to prevent them.

This is an incredibly strong accusation to throw into the public domain during such a tumultuous and terrifying time. After the attacks, this country needed someone to turn to as the person who would protect this country while destroying our enemies – and we all turned to Bush. And even all these months later as cleanup nearly ends at Ground Zero and no further attacks have been perpetrated against our country, people still see President Bush as our hero and savior through such a trying time. But when this story leaked – those that supported Bush before and after September 11th began wondering if it was true that we knew and did nothing.

So did we know what they would do before they did it?

In my opinion, I would say no – but that is only because I could not fathom a Government that would know such a horrific attack was coming and simply sit back and allow it to happen. I honestly hope that our Government didn’t know and was as shocked and saddened as everyone else. I have, however, heard stories of the Government knowing about the Pearl Harbor attack back in 1941 and doing nothing – and I have also heard stories of the Government keeping many secrets from us until they became necessary to reveal. But truth be told – we will never know the actual answer.

If it is true that we knew and did not tell anyone – I would completely and ultimately lose all faith in our Government. For people that were put in office by trusting voters to allow such an atrocity to occur would be unforgivable in my opinion. But like I said – we will probably never know – and I am just going to keep pretending that we didn’t know…

…because everything would change if we did.