Yes, America's in danger ...

. . . but it's not just from Islamist extremists:

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.

Speaking to the New America Foundation, as reported by Edward Alden in today's Financial Times, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, until early this year Colin Powell's chief of staff, described what he called a "cabal" headed by Cheney and Rumsfeld, saying “Now [the Administration] is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.”

As if you're not already scared to death by what Bush & Co have wrought, still you really need to read this.

This is why it isn’t a good idea to elect someone without experience who promises to make up for it by surrounding himself with “experts, the best people.”