[sanderjd]

What a different and more wonderful world this would be if President Bush's speech-writers had put together a more pithy variant of your attitude for his speech after 9/11! But I think a policy of courage would have been wildly less popular than that of fear proved to be.

[rhizome]

I don't agree that bush's policy of fear was popular.

[sanderjd]

Political popularity is hard to quantify. But for whatever they are worth, I have three points in support of my claim that President Bush's policy was (and is) "popular", one factual, one which I believe to be true but have no data for, and one anecdotal:

1) President Bush won reelection quite easily, 2) The "War on Terror" had and continues to have bipartisan support, while many other policies introduced since it began (such as the actual wars) have been wildly polarizing, and 3) In my personal discussions, I have found it very difficult to persuade most people that our response to 9/11 was anything but correct and justified.

[wpietri]

I don't think people who weren't afraid liked it. But people who were afraid (or could be made afraid) seemed to be pretty fond of it. Because the policy wasn't one of pure fear; it was one of security through fear.

[rhizome]

I don't agree that "popular" is an appropriate word to describe that state of affairs, since popularity implies choice.