Tom Ridge Says Bush Administration Used War on Terror as a Political Ploy

bartleby the scrivener | So the DFH "Lie-berals" were right all along, were we?  In fact, the Bush administration did use fear of terrorism to terrorize our gullible public into believing we needed Bush to keep us safe.  

"Tom Ridge, the first secretary of homeland security, asserts in a new book that he was pressured by top advisers to President George W. Bush to raise the national threat level just before the 2004 election in what he suspected was an effort to influence the vote." (NYT)

But that ain't all. 

Mr. Ridge writes that the bin Laden tape alone did not justify a change in the nation’s security posture but describes “a vigorous, some might say dramatic, discussion” on Oct. 30 to do so.

“There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None,” he writes. “I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’ Post-election analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the president’s approval rating in the days after the raising of the threat level.”

...Until now, he has denied politics played a role in threat levels. Asked by Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times if politics ever influenced decisions on threat warnings, he volunteered to take a lie-detector test. “Wire me up,” Mr. Ridge said, according to Mr. Lichtblau’s book, “Bush’s Law.” “Not a chance. Politics played no part.” (NYT)

And that ain't all.

"I believe our strong interventions had pulled the 'go-up' advocates back from the brink," Ridge writes. "But I consider the episode to be not only a dramatic moment in Washington's recent history, but another illustration of the intersection of politics, fear, credibility and security."

"After that episode, I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government for the private sector," Ridge, who resigned soon after the election where Bush defeated Democrat John F. Kerry, writes in "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege ... And How We Can Be Safe Again."  (Boston Globe)

So the critics of our useless corporatist press were right, were they?  Juan Cole:

The horrible thing is that Wolf Blitzer on CNN assembled David Frum and Frances Townsend, former members of the Bush administration, to sit around on his afternoon news and analysis program on Thursday afternoon and more or less either call Ridge a liar or pooh-pooh the significance of what he is saying. There wasn't a single centrist or left of center voice to show any outrage. I mean, I know that Time Warner is not made up of people who necessarily care about the little person or social justice or anything. But a little bit of shame?

It isn't enough that the corporate media lied to us for Bush for 8 years, they are continuing to do it.

Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast notes that progressive bloggers who called out the administration deserve an apology that will never come.

We were called traitors. We were told to leave the country. We were called every name in the book...Unlike those who dove under the bed with a plastic tarp in one hand and a roll of duct tape in the other every time George Bush or Dick Cheney said "Boo!", we noted that when warnings came in of an impending attack, George Bush and Dick Cheney did nothing -- and yet they insisted they were the ones who kept us safe. By the time they left office, they'd convinced the plastic sheeting and duct tape crowd that 9/11 had happened on Bill Clinton's watch. But on every single issue on which we noted the truth, we were called traitors by the right. But we were correct and they were wrong.

But never mind!  Here comes Marc Ambinder to divide the baby in half and to explain why progressives were wrong even when we right. 

Recent Buck Naked Politics Postings

Jon Stewart: Fox Has Become "Liberal"

CIA Sought Help of Blackwater in Assassinating Jihadists

The Town Hall Crowd

Public Option Flowchart

Florida Regulators Require Utilities to Disclose Executive Pay

Health Care: Still More Manipulation of Polls and Media?

Robert Novak, Dead at 78

The Daily Show: Obama Needs to Stay on Message in Health Care Debate

Even More Advertisers Ditch Glenn Beck

12 People Carry Guns -- Including an Assault Rifle -- Outside AZ Obama Event "Because They Can"

Comments

[Roxanne]

Nice post. A public awareness on what has been going on the years of President Bush regime.