Threat Level Politics
One of the rites of passages high-ranking government officials go through after they retire is to write a book. Former Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge is no different. His new book, The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege … and How We Can Be Safe Again, will be released on September 1st of this year.
Like any good book publisher, Thomas Dunne Books and Macmillian are beginning to drum up interest in their book to increase sales. That said, what did Ridge’s publishers say and more importantly, what did Ridge say.
From the Washington Post:
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says pressure from fellow Cabinet members to raise the nation’s terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election helped convince him it was time to quit working for President George W. Bush.
In a new book, Ridge says that despite the urgings of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft he objected to raising the security level, according to a publicity release from the book’s publisher.
In the end the alert level was not changed.
There are the standard denials of course from top-level players in the Bush Administration. But as we all recall, from the outside looking in, the threat level was an intrinsically political tool use by the Bush Administration, the same way Robert Deniro as Al Capone used a baseball bat to re-enforce team playing among his stooges.
In 2005, months after he resigned, Ridge said his agency has been the most reluctant to raise the alert level. “There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, ‘For that?'” he said during a panel discussion in May 2005. But his book appears to be the first time he publicly attributes some of the pressure to politics.
The Homeland Security Department, which Ridge was the first person to lead, faced criticism in 2004 from Democrats who alleged that raising the alert level was designed to boost support for the Bush administration during an election year.
And as the conservative cretins come bellowing in on how Tom Ridge is wrong, let’s take a look at some of the former Bush Administration officials who have been “wrong” when writing their books: Scott McClellan, Richard Clarke, Paul O’Neill, and John DiIulio.
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It is upsetting because terror alerts scare the public. This should have never been used to promote a political agenda.
Tom Ridge is an in irrelevant oaf whose appointment may be listed among the bigger mistakes of George W. Bush.
Reasons why others thought the threat level should be raised:
On March 11, 2004, Islamic terrorists set off the infamous ‘Madrid train bombings’, just before the Spanish elections.
Just four days before the election, Osama Bin Laden had issued a videotape threatening new attacks on the United States.