Threat level: Election
August 21st, 2009 9:35 am · 17 comments
You saw this, of course:
Former Gov. Tom Ridge says in a new book that he was pressured by some in the Bush administration to raise the nation’s terror alert on the eve of the 2004 elections.
Ridge, the first secretary of Homeland Security, makes the statement in his memoir, “The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege … and How We Can Be Safe Again,” which will hit bookstores Sept. 1. …
<snip>
According to promotional material by the book’s publisher, Thomas Dunne Books, Ridge wrote that he “effectively thwarted a plan to raise the national security alert just before the 2004 election.”
Ridge wrote that Attorney General John Ashcroft and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld strenuously argued that the terror alert should be raised after Osama bin Laden appeared in a new videotape shortly before the election. Ridge wrote that he didn’t see a specific threat in the tape.
While Ridge won the argument against raising the terror alert, he wrote that he wondered if the effort was “about security or politics.”
I wonder.
Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
Tags: Bush Era · Terrorism
There are currently 17 comments on this blog postView Topic | Comment on this blogBustina di tè
8/21/09
11:33 AM | It was noted that more than once the threat level was jumped up a color when ever John Kerry had a good poll result. It just wasn't on the eve of the election.
Between the media and GOP lies that allowed the 2000 election to be close enough to steal and what went on in 2004, you would think that the Democrats would wise up and fight back. Seems they're as hapless as ever, Hillary Clinton was spot on about her Lyndon Johnson remarks.
Obunko would rather parade in front of a mini town hall audience than twist arms and bust heads to get health care reform. But then real reform with a robust public option or strongly regulated universal insurance like the Germans have would be biting the hand that feeds him. |
grieker
8/21/09
12:55 PM | It was noted that more than once the threat level was jumped up a color when ever John Kerry had a good poll result. It just wasn't on the eve of the election.
Between the media and GOP lies that allowed the 2000 election to be close enough to steal and what went on in 2004, you would think that the Democrats would wise up and fight back. Seems they're as hapless as ever, Hillary Clinton was spot on about her Lyndon Johnson remarks.
Obunko would rather parade in front of a mini town hall audience than twist arms and bust heads to get health care reform. But then real reform with a robust public option or strongly regulated universal insurance like the Germans have would be biting the hand that feeds him.
They can't even run a simple three billion dollar cash for clunkers program and you want to entrust them with trillions?
Wake up people. |
clanker
8/21/09
1:07 PM | They can't even run a simple three billion dollar cash for clunkers program and you want to entrust them with trillions?
Wake up people.
I don't know. Seems like it's being concidered a huge success. |
ceejay
8/21/09
1:11 PM | I don't know. Seems like it's being concidered a huge success.
Not by the car dealers who handled the transactions and have yet to see a dime. Noon news on every channel, including Philly had them on. One guy is owed $600,000.
Wait until it is your healthcare provider waiting. Think you are going to get follow-up care? |
notveryhow
8/21/09
2:24 PM | Woof!
This thread isn't at all what I expected. I know we have a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, but what color is the threat level for clunkers? |
grieker
8/21/09
3:03 PM | Woof!
This thread isn't at all what I expected. I know we have a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, but what color is the threat level for clunkers?
RED!
I do apologize for the hijacking. Somebody mentioned healthcare and off I went on a tangent. I guess I thought it was as relevant as re-hashing 9 year old politics. |
ceejay
8/21/09
4:55 PM | Woof!
This thread isn't at all what I expected. I know we have a Severe Thunderstorm Watch, but what color is the threat level for clunkers?
Note to notvery: It does always make me chuckle when you start a post with "Woof"! Pictures of English sheepdogs run through my head. (Don't ask) |
Bustina di tè
8/22/09
12:29 PM | RED!
I do apologize for the hijacking. Somebody mentioned healthcare and off I went on a tangent. I guess I thought it was as relevant as re-hashing 9 year old politics.
Not 9 year old politics or the health care debacle, but the role media played in the outcome. Something they are still doing today only it seems they switched sides. Remember how they made it a point to show the most vile and outrageous anti-war protestors? Now they are doing the same to the tea-baggers and the mis-informed that show up at town hall meetings.
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the media was doing to enable George Bush but the media studiously ignored it it or helped out with the canard, and the Dems laid down and took it.
No wonder why BBC America World News is becoming the most popular program for those that want to know what is really going on in the United States. Same for the English language online sites like:
http://www.atimes.com/
http://www.spiegel.de/international/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/
http://www.france24.com/en/france
You can put up with the crap from domestic print and cable news or get real news, it's your choice. |
skeptic2
8/22/09
3:15 PM | Ridge is probably telling us what he knows, and there is probably much that he doesn't know. My contention is that there were some decent folks (Powell, Tenet) in the Bush administration who were slimed by Rove/ Cheney/ Rumsfeld. My guess is that Ridge will be added to that list. |
doghead
8/22/09
3:39 PM | RED!
I do apologize for the hijacking. Somebody mentioned healthcare and off I went on a tangent. I guess I thought it was as relevant as re-hashing 9 year old politics.
Yeah so Ridge just confirms what the libs have been saying for years and it's brushed off as "old news"
And here I thought real patriots would be outraged regardless of party.
Oh yeah, that's right a real patriot would be outraged.
But you are not outraged.
Gosh you must hate our constitution a whole bunch. |
Artie See
8/22/09
6:28 PM | It is beyond obvious that there is a double standard at work here. |
Bustina di tè
8/22/09
9:16 PM | Hey, this just occurred to me:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/020100a.html
QUOTE The half-hearted corrections also did not stop newspapers around the country from continuing to use the bogus quote.
A Dec. 9 editorial in the Lancaster [Pa.] New Era even published the polished misquote that the Republican National Committee had stuck in a press release: "I was the one who started it all."
The New Era then went on to psychoanalyze Gore. "Maybe the lying is a symptom of a more deeply-rooted problem: Al Gore doesn't know who he is," the editorial stated. "The vice president is a serial prevaricator."
Al Gore is still a respected former vice president but the New Error is no more. Yay, karma!!!
Now if only MSNBC, the NYT and WaPo would follow in those footsteps down the path to oblivion.  |
clanker
8/22/09
9:43 PM | Not by the car dealers who handled the transactions and have yet to see a dime. Noon news on every channel, including Philly had them on. One guy is owed $600,000.
Wait until it is your healthcare provider waiting. Think you are going to get follow-up care?
Check's in the mail. Dealers were very happy to have the business compared to not. As far as healthcare, I've experienced dozens of times the joy of an insurance co. sending back a claim unpaid after a review and then the doc. or hospital sending me the bill. That's what my employer pays high premiums for, I guess.
Yeah, back during those elections many of us correctly guessed that the threat level would be increased, and they did. It was about the most transparant thing the Bush administration did. |
skeptic2
8/22/09
10:04 PM | Some months ago, when confronted with the possibility that we had tortured in order to get false info that would justify the war, I said we should try to move on.
So it's a safe bet that we won't see Cheney, Rumsfeld or Rove in the White House again. But who are the others? If political operatives were manipulating the terror level, who were they all and how many knew about this? What chance is there that some individuals we don't yet know as household names could be recycled down the road?
I'm not so sure this is irrelevant.. |
skeptic2
8/23/09
8:02 AM | The torture report that Eric Holder is reviewing now has been available for 5 years. Holder will announce tomorrow whether he will appoint a special prosecutor. Parts of this have been leaked, but the vast majority of a public report was redacted. If Holder appoints a prosecutor, much more of the report will come out. It would seem that many of the CIA operatives involved are still in place. |
Bustina di tè
8/23/09
11:30 AM | After the elections back in 1992 Bill Clinton was urged to reopen the Iran-Contra investigations that had been derailed by Bush the Smarter's pardons of key players.
Bill refused to do so because he wanted the bickering to end and work with the republicans, they thanked him with the phony Whitewater investigation. Typical back stabbing obstructionism.
Nancy Pelosi scotched any hope of looking into the possible criminal acts of the with her "Impeachment is off the table" in that case though I suspect that she wanted to reserve those same powers for Obama that Bush the Lesser misused. |
grieker
8/24/09
8:32 AM | Yeah so Ridge just confirms what the libs have been saying for years and it's brushed off as "old news"
And here I thought real patriots would be outraged regardless of party.
Oh yeah, that's right a real patriot would be outraged.
But you are not outraged.
Gosh you must hate our constitution a whole bunch.
I am outraged however there is no way to go back and change that.
As for the constitution, show me where in the constitution where the government has the authority to run health care?
I'll even give you a starting place, Article 1 Section 8 lays down the powers of government and NOWHERE will you find GOVERNMENT run healthcare. But then Barack already knows that and is already lawyering up for the law suits waiting in the wings.
It is unconstitutional.
I have read the constitution AND the current health bill. Which one have you read?
Thought so.
|
View Topic | Comment on this blog
