I was watching Hardball this afternoon, and not really paying attention (we had company), but I did notice that there was something on the screen about a revelation from former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.
Ridge has written a book, The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again, due out on September 1. In it, Ridge reveals that he was pressured to raise the terror alert to help affect the outcome of the 2004 election.
Tom, tell us something many of us already didn't know. I assumed that the terror threats were manipulated so that people could remain in a constant state of fear.
I admit it. I had no confidence in former President Bush with regard to "keeping us safe." That position hardened when we dropped the ball in Afghanistan and set our sights on Iraq. So, of course it should come as no surprise that the terror threat levels were occasionally manipulated for political purposes.
As with General Colin Powell, I respect Gov. Ridge; however, I am disappointed in both them for not leaving the Bush administration when they first realized that it was shady. Duty should only go so far. Both men are now on the road to redemption, but I am sure that I am not alone in feeling sad to see the reputations of genuinely good men tarnished by the fatuous actions of the last administration.
3 comments:
The George W. Bush Administration was the puppet regime for former Vice President Dick Cheney.
It's a known fact Powell, Rice, and others were cut out of decision making.
Who do you think bullied Tom Ridge into manipulating the threat levels, ala Orwell's 1984?
The truly shocking revelation is that Citizen Cheney is not held accountable by the popular press for his secretive actions while holding office, his abuses of power by excluding the cabinet to the point they were simply titular, or more recently the Rasputinesque way he's heckling the current administration.
I'm just sayin'...
Above Anonymous: do you REALLY simplistically place the scariness of the Bush2 regime on the shoulders of...ONE PERSON? What about Carl Rove and his behind-the-scenes mob?
C'mon. Cheney takes some of the blame, but this is a systemic thing. Don't buy into the reductivist and distoring "one man" school of history. OK, Hilary Clinton's phrase "vast right-wing conspiracy" was made to seem ridiculous--but was it really so far off the mark?
Cheney operated in his own secret realm. What VP has had so much influence over a President, been able to classify his dealings such that he has been described as "running a government within a government", and will remain sealed for decades? Only former VP Dick Cheney.
The PBS show Frontline did a special on the Bush whitehouse, and it should systemic abuses of power by Cheney (he bullied and snubbed the cabinet unrelentingly), and he "served" a President who was all to willing to always give one person, the VP, the last word.
Meanwhile, the previously mum about gay equality Dick Cheney is suddenly spouting about being for gay equality. Where was this vocal and progressive beacon during the previous administrations??? Hmmmmm?? Not wrapped in the rainbow flag while he was holding a high office. I'm just sayin'...
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