President Obama believes the former:
"Al Qaeda itself is greatly weakened from where it was back in 2000. Bin Laden sending out a tape trying to take credit for a Nigerian student who engaged in a failed bombing attempt is an indication of how weakened he is because this is not something necessarily directed by him," Obama told ABC's Good Morning America.
"Since 9/11, we have put in a series of measures that make us much safer now than we were before," Obama said, referring to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
That's a relief.
Oh, and one more thing. Does this presidential statement verifying our post-9/11 measures to fight al Qaeda that have made us safer put to rest the ridiculous argument beloved on the left side of the aisle that President Bush took his eye off the ball by overthrowing the Saddam regime and failing to fight al Qaeda?
