What if that Somali terrorist in Portland, Oregon had succeeded? What if he had met his expressed goal and killed or injured all the folks gathered in downtown Portland to celebrate the lighting of the holiday tree? This is Portland, after all, one of the major cities of the blue fringe Left Coast, where there's just no possibility of a Christmas tree.

What do you suppose would be the position of the über-liberal mayor and city council who voted in the past not to participate in federal anti-terrorist programs? How many Oregonians could have perished in that square which hosts 25,000 people per day? Think that a tragic calamity costing thousands of innocent dead and wounded might get the liberal airheads running that city to extricate their skulls from the deep sands of progressive delusion?

Well, it does now appear that the city leaders might be reconsidering but only because a progressive occupies the White House. What if it were a conservative Republican sitting in that oval office? Would the leftist, true believing, Bush-hating politicos who run Portland still insist on denying their citizens the benefits of participating in the federal anti-terrorist programs? Would those liberal stalwarts convene in that still-smoking square and congratulate themselves on their collective political correctness that had cost the lives of thousands of their constituents?

The people of Portland should be asking themselves:

What if?