http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090820/pl_af..._20090820171704

cliff notes:

Aides to President Bush pressured then Homeland Security head Tom Ridge to raise the terror level on the eve of the 2004 election.

I should be less surprised.

Yup, pretty bad if true op. I truly mean that.



Especially since he'd be the only politician to ever stoop to some low brow tactic to gain an advantage.

I'd say the particular tactic of scaring the populace into believing a terrorist attack is imminent in order to gain an advantage in an election is pretty novel.

I'd say the particular tactic of scaring the populace into believing a terrorist attack is imminent in order to gain an advantage in an election is pretty novel.

yes lets go ahead and excuse the president from abusing his powers to falsely frighten his constituents into thinking their lives are in danger so he can more easily manipulate them and get their votes. how can anybody say this was ok? really?

yes lets go ahead and excuse the president from abusing his powers to falsely frighten his constituents into thinking their lives are in danger so he can more easily manipulate them and get their votes. how can anybody say this was ok? really?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090820/pl_af..._20090820171704

cliff notes:

Aides to President Bush pressured then Homeland Security head Tom Ridge to raise the terror level on the eve of the 2004 election.

I should be less surprised.

yes lets go ahead and excuse the president from abusing his powers to falsely frighten his constituents into thinking their lives are in danger so he can more easily manipulate them and get their votes. how can anybody say this was ok? really?

Does anyone else think Tom Ridge should be criticized for bringing this up five years later instead of right when it happened?

Does anyone else think Tom Ridge should be criticized for bringing this up five years later instead of right when it happened?

Does it matter that the story in the OP says that the action was never done?

So even though Bush had masterminded evil plans for the take over of 1/7th of the nation's economy...print and spend a Trillion dollars on political friends programs...raise the color level of an alert no one takes very serious, nothing was ever done and the whistle blower himself says it wasn't Bush, but two guys who were heads of departments that get immediate boost in their spending when the threat level increases, allowing them to put more people into action and other behind the scenes things that the public has little care about let alone information on?

They called an emergency so they could use more government stuff for their re-election campaign, what a relief!

I see, they did for money, that is much better. They called an emergency so they could use more government stuff for their re-election campaign, what a relief!

I don't think that's what he was saying.

Sometimes I ignore rose since he is just trying to find ways to make me mad

It sucks when someone co-opts your playbook, eh?

Kiran Chetry: In his book Ridge says, “Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level, and was supported by Rumsfeld. There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’” Fran, you were in the meetings. What is your recollection of how that whole conversation went down?

Frances Townsend: Kiran, I actually chaired the meeting and called it. Tom Ridge knew very well that I agreed with him that I didn’t believe there was a basis to raise the threat level, but I knew there were others in the Homeland Security Council that did believe that and we agreed we’d have the conversation. By the way, what Tom Ridge’s book doesn’t say is the most eloquent case for not raising the threat level was not made by Tom in fact, it was made by Secretary of State at the time, Colin Powell. And Bob Muller, at great personal risk – remember his boss John Ashcroft was advocating to raise it – based on the facts of the intelligence, Bob Muller himself made an eloquent case not to raise it.

Related: Ridge: WH wanted terror alert hike before vote

Chetry: He’s saying he felt politics played in to those decisions and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of him deciding to get out of federal government. Do you think politics came in to the equation at all during the time when it came to deciding whether or not to raise the threat level?

Townsend: Not only do I not think that it – that politics played any part in it at all – it was never discussed. In fact, the only thing that was discussed was – earlier that summer there had been a threat against the financial district, there was the Bin Laden tape, and then there was another tape, Kiran, by Adam Gadahn a U.S. citizen who was a member of al Qaeda. And it was a very threatening tape. And so the discussion really revolved around what the intelligence was. There was no discussion of politics whatsoever.

John Roberts: There was also some controversy following the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston when the threat level was raised and was later found out that a lot of the information, or at least some of the information that played in to that decision to raise the threat level, was three-years-old. So there were a lot of people who were already suspicious. I mean, when you take these two things in combination, does it suggest that maybe people were looking at this idea – well, it is the fall of the election campaign, we’re in a tight race here with John Kerry, maybe we could work some things to our advantage?

Townsend: You know, in fact, not only was there no discussion in those meetings, the discussions on the margins – you know one of the people who was in that meeting was John McLaughlin, the acting director of CIA, and John Brennan, the current homeland security adviser was then the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. The only discussions I recall were, on the margins of that, there was concern if the intelligence supported raising the threat level it might actually be to the detriment of President Bush because people might perceive it being political. In the end John, people have to remember, you want the Cabinet members who disagree to have a healthy debate. And this in the end came out in the right place. The threat level was not raised and there’s no reason to suspect this discussion would have had any impact on the election whatsoever.

Chetry: When we talk about whether or not politics played in to any of this equation, a lot of people say perhaps there are some political ambitions on the part of Tom Ridge and that he wants to perhaps separate himself from the Bush administration in some ways moving forward. Do you think that what he wrote or what he’s alleging here perhaps has a political motivation?

Townsend: I’ve got to believe it does, Kiran. And I’m sorry to say that because I really enjoyed working with Tom Ridge. But I will tell you not only did he never say this at the time – that he thought political influence was involved in the raising or lowering of the threat level – he’s never said it since when I’ve spoken to him. And just two weeks ago – I’m co-chairing along with Bill Webster a bipartisan task force to make recommendations to Secretary Napolitano now about the threat advisory system. One of the things we obviously did was ask Tom Ridge and Secretary Chertoff to come in and talk to the panel. This is two weeks ago. And Tom Ridge never in that meeting ever mentioned any concern and he mentioned what concerns he had. He never mentioned any concern about politicization of the threat advisory system. So you’ve got to believe that this is personally motivated in some way.

Roberts: He’s not coming out to talk about this until the first of September. Between now and then … if he doesn’t have specifics to back this up, he’s going to get eaten alive by folks like you, Andy Card, and other Bush administration officials who are going to try to slam him down as hard as they can.

Townsend: Well John, I’ll tell you, last night I got my hands on one of the books and I looked at it. And, in fact, in other parts of the book, Tom acknowledges that politics never played a role in any of his decisions about the threat alert system. So you have to wonder if this is not just publicity meant to sell more books.

I know I don't get the reaction from some of the conservatives on here. Just posting it downgraded me to a Temple guy apparently. This is kind of a big deal. Just part of the ongoing GOP initiative to pretend that 2001-2008 never happened I guess.

I think my response to this story is "We already knew Bush was appalling, do we need more evidence?" Is another 1% appalling really going to change my mind about him in any meaningful way?

So for the record: yeah, he sucks and this story just reinforces that.

Except for the fact that he probably had nothing to do with it.

How's it a fact if it's merely probable?

Well, the story that was posted by Pot Odds RAC could be a lie... but since it seems to be verbatim, I am forced to assume that he wasn't involved.

Sorry brvheart, I have to take the other side this time; I have finally seen the light.

To think that an elected official would use his influence to help himself get elected by doing something as downright evil as reminding people that there is currently a battle between the US and radical muslim extremist right in the middle of a campaign where he has run commercial adds for 16 months saying the exact same thing is just beond the ability of me to comprehend.

Where does he get off trying to get re-elected.

And to TOP IT OFF, after trying to manipulate the person he appointed to the office that gets to flip the switch on the color codes...he told the guy that he didn't think it should be raised.

I mean the duplicity and metagame thinking he performed...it's like even he didn't want to raise it, but he did, and he could have forced it, but he didn't and he beat the democrat loser John Kerry ( Who served in Vietnam ) without it. I'm not even sure what just happened...and it's been over 5 years!

I really like how he used the Spanish elections that year as a deep undercover backup should he have changed his mind about raising the color levels. You know, bombing the rails in Spain in order to influence thier elections (which worked). Wow, to have an actual example of terrorist using terrorism just before an election the VERY YEAR that he was going to do the EXACT SAME THING, except for the bombing part..but the winning the election part is totally close to being accurate if that's possible.

Man that George W. Bush..the W must stand for WILEY ( and not the coyote kind(And not the mexican people smuggler kind))

pretty obvious ridge received a warning visit from cheney's hit squad.

I WANT ONE OF THOSE