Credit George W. Bush for America's Safety

The New Hampshire Union Leader credits President Bush for the safety of the nation over the Thanksgiving weekend:

While Americans sat through football games, planned their "Black Friday'' morning shopping, and all in all enjoyed a quiet and peaceful Thanksgiving, terrorists in India were slaughtering more than 200 innocent people. Westerners, particularly U.S. and British citizens, were primary targets.

The fact that it was a peaceful American Thanksgiving went unnoticed by most. The fact that this has been the case since the Al Qaida attacks on America of Sept. 11, 2001, also went little noticed. That all of this coincides with and is a result of President Bush's prosecution of the war on Islamist extremism is never highlighted.

Our final editorial today notes general news media bias in favor of Barack Obama. Imagine what that media would have had to say, and where all the blame would have gone, had America been attacked at home again on Bush's watch.

We aren't suggesting that President Bush's strategy is the sole reason for our relative safety here at home. But it has certainly contributed in great measure. And before the new President and his eager Congress get to work dismantling what Bush has built, they better think very carefully.

Bush's much-maligned Patriot Act, with its access to international communications traffic; his seizure and confinement of enemy combatants at Guantanamo, and his buildup of security forces at home and abroad, all of these things have helped to keep America safer.

America is not safe from attacks such as just occurred in Mumbai, India. Indeed, a credible threat to the New York subway system was being watched this weekend.

But we are safer than we were seven years ago and President Bush's administration deserves much of the credit for that this Thanksgiving weekend.

That tone strikes me as just about right, and the message is especially interesting, as it's exactly the opposite of the collectivist-left's meme that America's security has been weakened under the current administration.

Keep all of this in mind as the President-Elect announces his national security team today.