Hold your horses on Ridge
I don't mean to be a wet blanket here, but near as I can tell, Tom Ridge has not admitted that the terror alerts were timed for political reasons during the Bush administration. He is saying that the Bushies once
attempted to do it -- just before the 2004 election -- and he valiantly
refused. It's a self-serving "admission" that acknowledges no instances
in which the threat level was actually raised to serve George W. Bush's political needs.
Now I still suspect that politics were involved in the timing of the terror alerts. But that doesn't mean Ridge has conceded the point. To do so, after all, would be to admit complicity and culpability. And for now, at least, Ridge doesn't appear to be doing so.
Crossposted at jesselava.com.
Now I still suspect that politics were involved in the timing of the terror alerts. But that doesn't mean Ridge has conceded the point. To do so, after all, would be to admit complicity and culpability. And for now, at least, Ridge doesn't appear to be doing so.
Crossposted at jesselava.com.
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Wouldn't Ridge get in legal problems if he admitted that he went along with this pressure? Was tinkering with the threat level system illegal?
August 22, 2009 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Turley said, on Countdown last night, that isn't illegal, only a betrayal of national trust.
August 22, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Its a Catch-22 legally, only Republicans can keep us safe, so they are justified in using any official government policy or resource to get re-elected. Catch-22: says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.
August 22, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Jesse, you have not given up on us. gooooooooood
No he did not say that. But Chris and even Keith have picked up on it.
This is OLD NEWS. I remember this from the 2004 elction. I remember the 'feelers' that were sent out over the air waves about this. I remember thinking, nay knowing beyond any reasonable doubt, that this was all 'put out there' to help the single dumbest president we ever had stay in power.
I remember the floaters sent out about maybe it might be a good idea to 'postpone' elections for our own safety. I mean where does it say in the Constitution the first Tuesday in November, anyway.
But, I do not bitch about this sort of media watch because IT REMINDS PEOPLE HOW CLOSE WE CAME TO DICTATORSHIP in this country. Forever.
August 22, 2009 1:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
When Bush was deceiving the nation into war with Saddam, at some point the administration said Saddam had the means and the motives for WMD, Josh Marshall pointed out if you have the means and the motive its a done deal, you have the weapons. Of course, Saddam didn't have them, so either the means or the motive was missing.
Its the same with Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Rove, Ridge if they have the means (they always have the motive) to influence an election, it is a done deal. Its as certain as shit flows downhill.
August 22, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. There was only ONE time that they tried to use the threat level for political reasons and Ridge stopped it. Yeah, sure. 911 as an excuse for invading Iraq anyone? WMD's with inspectors in the country finding nothing? The Bush regime was ABOVE politicizing scare tactics? S-U-R-E! I believe it. But this might change my mind; could it change yours?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLRYc9CTFLM
August 22, 2009 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tom Ridge: Liar. I rest my case.
August 22, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't particularly care about Ridge: I do care that he confirms what I believed about the Bushies. If Ridge were fully patriotic he would have blown the whistle then.
August 22, 2009 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hello, Jesse. Saw your blog on a blogroll at another website. I'm delighted to see you here.
August 22, 2009 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the Bushies would manipulate terror alerts for political reasons, could they be trusted to stop 9/11 if they thought war might boost their approval rating?
August 22, 2009 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've always wondered why Dubya kept reading after it was reported that the first plane hit the towers. Was he waiting for the second? I think he knew more then he admits. I think there were too many advantages to having another Gulf of Tonkin, or Pearl Harbor, or Maine, or Alamo, or ... Remember!!??!!
August 23, 2009 2:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
He was notified after the second plane hit, not the first.
August 23, 2009 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, at THAT point, what would any national leader think? That the country was actually under attack, and she should take control of the forces available to him? That would be my thought. Rather, he continued in the little study lesson. What was the Secret Service thinking? Why didn't they get him out of this photo -op? What if HE had been the next target?
I wish Ridge hadn't written this book; it just brings all these thoughts back; all the opportunities and lives lost with the excuse of 911. It is sickening, really.
August 23, 2009 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not to reopen the investigation that Bush/Cheney did not want into 9/11, but a friend keeps pointing out things below and I have no answers, because I can't believe someone planted explosives in the Towers.
How did a paper/petrol fire up 75 stories cause molten metal burning in the sub-basement levels for weeks or months?
Why in that 9/11 video of one Tower collapse (from up in an elevated position in a nearby building) did the camera visibly shudder (also picked up by seismographs at Columbia's Lamont on the Hudson) before not the Tower, but the Tower's central core and huge antenna suddenly drop, seconds later followed by the outer shell? If the collapse was due to the outer struts failure why would the core go first, what caused the obvious shaking of the ground just as it began?
WTC #7 - a kerosene fire caused that collapse?
August 23, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know someone who is in that kind of construction. He knows engineers who suggest that the epic collapse was related to faulty construction. He believes the guys who put it up may have been skipping a few beams to save/make more money. Wouldn't be the first time, and it seems more probable then anyone believing they can coordinate ALL of that.
August 23, 2009 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Discussing this in the context of achieving a political outcome is an exceedingly serious transgression. A conversation like this just can't be had. Having it is more than mere bad judgement. Having it implies entertaining the idea.
August 23, 2009 2:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
But they didn't even raise politics explicitly, according the Ridge. That was just his inference. Now he was probably right -- and I'd wager that he allowed them to raise the terror alert level several times when it was politically advantageous to doing so. But the issue in this post is about what Ridge has actually come clean about. And the answer is: not much. It's something, but it still doesn't reveal any time in which political concerns (a) were explicitly broached, or (b) changed an outcome.
August 23, 2009 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink