Reports that al Qaeda is planning to target sites like Penn Station and that there is increased chatter in intelligence circles concerning a terrorist event are certainly enough to cause reasonable people to be worried–especially in light of the gruesome attack in Mumbai. Who knows whether the attack in Mumbai is the culmination of the chatter, or whether it is only the beginning of yet another potentially bloody harvest? The fact that Americans and Britons were apparently the targets of gunmen in the Mumbai attack only serves to augment worries and concerns.

One hopes that the people in charge of the Presidential transition are on top of this. I suspect that they are; by all accounts, the transition is going quite smoothly. It had better–while I certainly hope to be proven wrong about this, there is every indication that terrorists are planning to take advantage of the transition to launch a catastrophic attack somewhere. Those who perhaps caused themselves over the past few years to believe that we were worried and concerned over relatively nothing have received a shocking and appalling reminder that there is indeed something to be concerned about. Yes, we will go on living our lives. No, we won’t give in to fears. But there is a threat, it is real and we had better stop pretending otherwise.