Which was Inadequate, the law or the leader?

President Bush tells us that the Patriot Act is required so that he can protect our country from terrorist attack. On the face of it, one may take Mr. Bush to mean that before we had the Patriot Act, the law was inadequate with respect to enabling the President to protect us from terror attacks.

Think again. Before we had the Patriot Act, we also had 42 other Presidents. All of them were able to, for the most part, protect our country from terrorist attack. Why is Mr. Bush unable to?

Was the law inadequate, or just our protector?