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Digital Armageddon: Could foreign hackers execute a crippling attack on American shores?

A key Department of Defense network goes down. Air-traffic control collapses. Trains collide. Financial data systems are in ruins. Lethal clouds of chlorine gas drift from plants in New Jersey and Delaware.

Thousands of Americans are dead ? and the looting and food shortages haven't even begun.

Coming from the man who waged an often lonely pre-9/11 campaign to warn his superiors in the Clinton and Bush White Houses of the threat posed by Al Qaeda, the admonition is difficult to ignore.

But could a handful of hackers really cripple the world's sole superpower? Could we truly be 15 minutes from calamity?

It is a question as difficult as it is chilling. But one thing is clear: we're vulnerable.

Wired to death?
The United States may not be the most networked country in the world. Sweden, Singapore, Denmark, and Switzerland placed higher in the most recent rankings from the World Economic Forum.

But considering our economic, political, and military might, no country has more to lose in a cyber war.

PRESIDENT OBAMA?S vacation on Martha?s Vineyard might have gotten mixed reviews in the press, but locals welcomed the First Family with open arms.

The most powerful man in the world touched down last week on Martha's Vineyard's grass-stamped airport, and quietly set to work enjoying the pursuits late-summer vacations require. Even so, everyone knew he was here; they had been talking about it for weeks.

Homeowners hung welcome signs and shopkeepers put out presidential wares: I VACATIONED WITH OBAMA and BOBAMA THE DOG T-shirts, mostly, the latter a take on the island's ubiquitous Black Dog logo. In the busy town of Oak Bluffs, tourists sipped Obamaritas and dined on Barack-o-Guaco and Commander-in-Chief gelato. An old man sat in a rocking chair on his front porch cradling a framed photo, waiting in vain for a glimpse of the president, at best likely catching a glimpse of a motorcade or a throng of reporters instead.

Barack Obama traveled with his wife, Michelle, their two daughters and dog, a skeleton White House staff, and a gaggle of hotshot journalists, but only the last group would make their presence known. Prior to their arrival many of these reporters had busied themselves with updates on Obama's all-time-low approval ratings, his comments on a Ground Zero mosque, renewed speculation over whether he is Muslim, and endless rants over his bad PR choice of a vacation spot that has been deemed a resort community and a Democratic playground. Here, their job was to extend that soap opera, to toggle around the island by bus and detail the president's every move. But instead, for 10 days they spent hours waiting for a secondhand report that the president was golfing, or on a bike ride, or playing board games with his family ? tidbits of information they were rarely allowed close enough to witness, but would feed to the hungry maw of 24-hour journalism.

Massachusetts's second-largest city has always been Boston's ugly step-sister, ignored and marginalized by the state's political elites. Tell a Bay State political veteran that you're writing about Worcester's political power, and the first reaction, more often than not, is a hearty laugh.

But upon reflection, most of those apparent skeptics actually agree; as odd as it may seem ? "Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it?" says one decades-long Massachusetts operative ? Worcester is becoming a political epicenter of the state.

Tim Murray, the city's former mayor, became the first statewide elected official from Worcester in more than a half-century when he was sworn in as lieutenant governor in January 2007. He may soon be joined by Guy Glodis, the Worcester County sheriff who some consider the front-runner for state auditor. Plus, Karyn Polito, state representative from neighboring Shrewsbury, will be the GOP nominee for state treasurer.

And, after a long history of Boston heavyweights in Congress, from Speakers Tip O'Neill and John McCormack to Rules Committee chair Joe Moakley, it's central Massachusetts that will soon have power in Washington. Worcester's Jim McGovern is next in line to chair the Rules Committee ? considered by some the most powerful position after Speaker ? and Richard Neal, whose district includes Worcester's southern suburbs, is said to be the likely Ways and Means chair in 2011 if Democrats retain their majority.

In his address to the nation Tuesday evening, discussing the end of American combat operations in Iraq, Barack Obama took great pains to be apolitical, nonjudgmental, and even gracious toward his predecessor. As presidential as that may have been, it left unsaid a critical and unavoidable truth: in terms of foreign policy, the Republican Party remains unapologetically committed to Bush/Cheneyism.

Conservatives have taken "clash of civilization" theories as advice, rather than warning. To them, we must always be on the attack against the looming onslaught of Islamism, constantly on the offensive ? fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here, as George W. Bush loved to say. Bombs, assassinations, secret detentions, torture, denial of habeas corpus, drone attacks, "collateral damage" to civilians ? all justified as pre-emptive strikes against an imagined looming worldwide caliphate.

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the neocons believed that America's military might meant that we could change whatever we wanted about the world, whenever we wanted to, without consequences. That insane misconception led us into Iraq, costing us, to date, more than 4000 American lives, more than twice that in wounded, an estimated $700 billion (with far more to come), and untold harm to American interests in the region and around the world.

The fact that, eventually, the military figured out a way to extract us from the mess our policymakers got into is a great relief. But the success of the "surge" ? still a rather fragile one ? changes nothing about the philosophy and decision-making that led us to undertake the war in the first place.

Washington, DC ? Glenn Beck maintains that he didn't purposely schedule this "Restoring Honor" rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

I say bullshit. He wants nothing more than to lead his people to the promised land.

I know, for today I am among his legionnaires.

The troops are decked in their combat best, sporting Old Glory in her every form along with such prized accessories as autographed NASCAR hats. Some of their motto tees are cute and familiar ("THE CONSTITUTION: I READ IT FOR THE ARTICLES"), while others are ironic choices for guys wearing sensible cross-trainers ("I'M THE COLONIAL REVOLUTIONARY THAT YOUR HIPPIE FRIENDS WARNED YOU ABOUT"). Many younger attendees have on shirts advertising their unaccredited colleges, while senior citizens wear visors and a look of permanent disgust.

I find myself blending in: back in Boston, the camo shorts and yellow T-shirt were just an outfit, but here, from a distance the latter looks like a "Don't Tread On Me" flag. I decide to go with it, telling folks that the scroll tattoo on my right forearm represents the Constitution. In a momentary redneck transformation, I go so far as to join in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, lifting my voice for the "under God" part.

I have no choice. It's a matter of survival. Or at least the difference between my taking notes in peace, and having to argue with the idiots who are beleaguering other journalists who roam beyond the press box. I feel especially bad for one telltale liberal blogger, who might as well have worn an Obama-Biden hoodie to complement his Merrell boots and Nalgene jar.