Franklin Delano Roosevelt and George W. Bush are presidents who faced
             markedly different times, economic issues and social concerns. However,
             they have one tragic fact in common: they were both sitting presidents when
             the United States experienced surprise attacks from countries or entities
             outside the United States. Roosevelt was President during the attack on
             Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and Bush was president on September 11,
             2001, when the terrorist organization al-Queda attacked New York City and
             Both incidents resulted in the United States going to war with wide
             support from the American public, and allegations have since arisen that
             both presidents knew about the likelihood of the attacks before they
             There's no doubt that both attacks came as a complete surprise to most
             people. Roosevelt called the attack on Pearl Harbor a day that would live
             in infamy, and the immediate circumstances surrounding the attack certainly
             supported that view. The attack made it impossible to not declare war on
             Japan, and since Japan had signed an agreement with the Axis Powers, this
             meant we were also at war with Germany and Italy.
             After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the great majority of
             American realized we had experienced a terrorist attack, which made it
             unclear at first just whom we should declare war on. In some ways the 2001
             attack was even more outrageous to Americans than the Pearl Harbor attack
             in 1941. In 1941, Japan had chosen military targets. In 2001, al-Queda
             hit only one military target which resulted in a small minority of the
             casualties compared to the thousands of people who died in New York City
             when they attacked civilian targets. By September 15th, formal opinion in
             the government had formed that the terrorist group al-Queda was behind the
             attacks as they had claimed. President Bush's administration had already
             made it clear that we...