In the four years that have passed since 9/11, we have seen an incompetant President gain the support of 90% of Americans, and lead the country into a war in Afghanistan (which I still support to this day, but Bush has royally fucked up to start his war in Iraq)only to lose their support and exploit the tragedy as much as possibly to at least keep the support of 51%. Before 9/11, I could not stand Bush, especially after seeing how he stopped Gore in the recount, not to mention to petty political attacks on people like John McCain. After seeing Dems take over the Senate, I thought that Bush was toast, and that he would be taken out in 2004, possibly by Gore in a rematch. However, on 9/11, I, like 90% of the population, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and I was willing to support him in retaliation against Al Qaida. I supported Bush's policies without question for the first few months, and scoffed off suggestions that we were violating human rights in places like Guantanamo.
My trust in Bush broke down around December 2001-January 2002. The first incident was none other than his bungling of Tora Bora. When I heard that he was not taking that place seriously, I became pissed that he didn't do more to find Osama. Later on that month, I became further enraged when he said that he would not allow for a broad peace-keeping force to enter Afghanistan (ironically, I think his reason was that he didn't want to enter "nation-building" or at least not rebuilding Afghanistan.) The following month, I watched a story on the news about how Karl Rove was circulating a memo suggesting that 9/11 was the central theme of the 2002 Congressional Elections. This enraged me, because I saw the aftermath of 9/11 truely as one of bipartisanship, and now he was going to brake it. In the following months, I became angrier over his indifference about finding Osama, and his flip flops regarding the Homeland Security Department and 9/11 Commission, both of which he supported for policial gain and were originally proposed by Democrats. By mid-2002, I had pulled myself out of the "support the President" column, and back into the skeptical crowd. However, it took me until 2003 to get to where I am now in terms of anger, when I saw how obsessive he was in wanting to go into Iraq (Originally, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in forming a coalition to pressure Saddam, but when I saw how obsessed he was with going in, I was disgusted.)
On this anniversary, I am wondering, how many here were "90 Percenters" who supported Bush in the aftermath, and how many here were "10 Percenters" who opposed the war in Afghanistan and were skeptical of Bush from the beginning?