I have to add ... How many ivory tower residents of the punditocracy have told us that PC is now dead due to the events of 9/11? I should have kept a list so I would know who to stop reading because anyone who believes this is a moron.
PC is so all pervasive and endemic that it is now 1000% deadly. Once it was a nuisence. Now it gets us slaughtered by terrs. GOD DAMN the politically correct to hell!! And that is not in vain. It is a fervent prayer.
It took the disaster of Hitler's conquest of Denmark and Norway to bring Churchill to power in Britain in 1940. Once Churchill came to power, the war was prosecuted seriously. There was of course the added stimulus of the fall of France. Enemy aliens -- most of whom were leftist and Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany -- were interned, people suspected of sympathy with Germany were arrested and imprisoned for years on the flimsiest of charges. In other words, the war was prosecuted seriously.
I suspect Bodansky is right that we are vulnerable to another spectacular atrocity. However, I would say we are also just one spectacular atrocity away from mass deportations and internments.