When 9/11 happened, I'd just taken several college courses with Bill Clinton's counterterrorism advisor, reading the most current work on effective prevention and responses to political violence, and I was like, "Oh, I know this one! Surely there are experts in the government who will not allow the US to respond on the basis of gut-level emotions or mass panic." Little did I know that the rest of my life would be watching governments respond on the basis of gut-level emotions and mass panic!