Old news, really, but I didn't see it mentioned here yet.

Back on May 11th:

quote:

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says. Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or "high" risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled. His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus. Ridge said he wanted to "debunk the myth" that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002. "More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?'….. " http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/usato...clashesonalerts

Emphasis mine.

Now before the elections I bitched about the terrorist alerts and how ridiculously often they were seemingly utilized:

http://www.tranceaddict.com/forums/...t=terror+alerts

Now a common argument used by liberals that I’ve seen is that we certainly haven’t seen any terrorist alerts lately, which implies nothing shy of sheer politicization of these terror alerts to scare the “soccer moms” into voting for the incumbent prior to the election (and hence we see nothing afterwards). I was willing to give the President the benefit of the doubt and see the obvious reply being that the elections were prime time to see terrorist chatter, and that there’s obviously not so much chatter now.

But given what we know about the “flimsy” evidence of these terrorist alerts, and given the recent comments by Ridge, as well as the fact that these fucking alerts were ringing bells and whistles pretty much all last year prior to the election, and that now we hear absolutely NO alerts of any sort, I can no longer dismiss the fact that, once again, our President manipulated intelligence for his own personal political gain with these alerts:

http://slapnose.com/archives/2004/0..._bush_approval/

And hey, big surprise that our GOP kabal in the House wants to scale back our color-coded alert system NOW:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/...on/11681103.htm



Ahh, back in the saddle again.

Well, only 2 more weeks of my rants, then you’ll likely see quite a bit less of me. Hold your tissues until then…..

___________________
Whence September dusk grows crisper still,
with leaves all crimson conquered,
I yearn to shout,
and dance about,
and stick pickles in my honker...