Barbra Streisand is writing again!

America was profoundly changed after the September 11 attacks. We went from a country motivated by hope to a country controlled by fear. For the last several years, feeling neither safe nor secure, Americans have lived in extreme anxiety of another impending terrorist attack.

There's another way to look at it: we don't want to be nuked by Islamist madmen.

I think that as a result, most Americans sought out their faith and reaffirmed their conviction in God.

And others scoffed and mocked.

President Bush and the Religious Right's greatest political weapon has been perpetuating fear. Because of the heightened climate of anxiety coupled with religious fervor, they have been successful in stripping Americans of their personal freedoms, suppressing dissent and winning elections based on moral values.

Dissent has been suppressed, except for liberal advertisements comparing Bush to Hitler; a top Democrat, during war time, calling the president "the enemy;" a major liberal radio personality suggesting the president meet a violent end; the U.S. Senate's top Democrat calling President Bush "a loser;" a minority in the Senate effectively blocking all of President Bush's judicial nominees even though a majority would approve them; a truth-challenged filmmaker who reaped millions and millions and millions of dollars at the box office putting out a feature-length, anti-Bush movie (It grossed even more than Yentl!); and far-left Political Action Committees that raised tens upon tens upon tens of millions of dollars in an effort to throw President Bush out of office. Except for that, dissent has been amazingly crushed by the President Bush and the religious right.

I also think the unfathomable fear of being a victim of another terrorist attack has allowed for the crumbling of the wall between church and state, which is a vital part of our historical, legal and political heritage.

Actually, the crumbling of the wall between church and state began with the emergence of radical theocrats who put forth the argument that the government has to rely on religion if the Republic is to survive. Yes, radical theocrats like, well, George Washington.

By allowing personal religious beliefs to infiltrate our political framework, we have enabled this administration to wage a war on women's reproductive rights, squelch scientific advancement, take away our freedom of speech and fill important positions within government and possibly the nation's highest courts with religious extremists. We must not let fear cripple our democracy.

By "war on women's reproductive rights," she might be referring to the ban on partial-birth abortion, which would not have become law had not 16 Democrats voted to impose it.

Bush's actions to manipulate the country using fear remind me of Franklin D. Roosevelt's brilliant quote "there is nothing to fear but fear itself."

Roosevelt also had another, lesser-known quote: "The U.S. Supreme Court is getting in my way, so I'll try to radically alter the third branch of government to undercut its authority and get my way, the U.S. Constitution be damned." Well, FDR never actually said those words, but he tried to do it nonetheless.

The Bush administration, capitalizing on the horror of 9/11, had the perfect opportunity to wage a war under false pretenses and four years after 9/11, get away with failing to properly secure our borders, ports, airplanes and nuclear power plants.

"Capitalizing on the horror of 9/11?" How dare she? Not only that, but she's using an argument made by John Kerry that sent 60 million Americans to the polls for President Bush.

I have written before how this administration could have and should have prevented 9/11 by not ignoring all the threats we were given, or even by beefing up airline cockpit doors. The U.S. continues to be isolated from the international community and thousands of young American soldiers have senselessly been killed and injured. Despite all of the Administration's mistakes and shortcomings, Bush was re-elected by the American people (regardless of the many accounts of possible voter fraud).

The voter fraud argument has essentially become a fashion statement among the in-denial, angry left. Apparently, some still think it's not yet out of style.

People are unable to recognize they are being manipulated when they are paralyzed by fear because their government is constantly reminding them of an impending terrorist attack. During the 2004 election, every time John Kerry's poll numbers elevated, the government announced a new terror alert and people were once again forced to face the orange color code.

Script! People get her a script! The suspicious-terror-alert conspiracy was replaced by the Swift Boat "liar" conspiracy, followed by the Jesusland conspiracy. She's out of date by two conspiracies.

The administration has spent more time trying to keep the people frightened, rather than focusing on securing our country. Only last week were lighters banned from airplanes, yet it has been a full 3 * years since "Richard Reed" tried to light his shoe bomb on fire with a match, while aboard an American Airlines flight to Miami. Even though lighters are now banned, matches are still permissible on airplanes. This is merely one example among many of how slow the Bush administration has reacted when presented with an opportunity to make Americans more secure.

Well, the Bush Administration may have been delayed in keeping terrorists from bringing lighters on planes because they've been, well, too busy working with allies to kill and capture the terrorists before they get on planes.

President Bush continues to maintain that he is doing everything in his power to make America safer. Thus far most of the country continues to accept this fallacy. Bush's actions remind me of Herman Goering's quote during the Nuremberg Trials,

Maybe she is right about crushing of dissent. The president's opponents aren't comparing him to Hitler any more; they've demoted the comparison to lower-ranking Nazis...

where he stated: "...it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism..."

Or, if you live in thuggish dictatorships seeking to align with terrorists, you can simply just kill everybody who disagrees with you.