In Ridge's new book he is apparently making it clear that the raising and lowering of the terror alerts were political.
I remember that interview on August 1, 2004. Wolf Blitzer was interviewing Howard Dean on CNN.
From the
CNN transcript August 1, 2004.Governor Dean, thanks very much for joining us.
And I want to immediately get your reaction to both of these developing stories. First, the decision by the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security, to increase the threat level here in Washington, D.C., from yellow to orange, from elevated to high. What do you make of this?
HOWARD DEAN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF VERMONT: It's hard to know what to make. None of us outside the administration have access to the intelligence, which led to this determination.
I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that "I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America stick with me," and then out comes Tom Ridge.
It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it.
BLITZER: Well, when you say that, that's a very serious allegation, that the federal government, Tom Ridge, the president of the United States, may be playing politics with the whole issue of fear and terror threat levels. And I want you to explain specifically, so there's no confusion, what you mean by that.
DEAN: What I mean by that is the president himself has played politics with it. The president is basing his political campaign for re-election on the notion that he ought to be re-elected because terrorism is a danger, and his case to the American people is, "I'm the only person who can get us through this." So of course this is politics.
Blitzer as much as said he was making serious allegations, and he was.
Today Glenn Greenwald is going after Marc Ambinder at the The Atlantic for trying to rationalize his feelings back then. Ambinder was critical of "the left" for thinking the terror alerts were political.
Fringe leftist losers: wrong even when they're rightJust as is still commonly said about opponents of the Iraq War (even though they were right, they were still wrong and unSerious because their motives were bad), Ambinder acknowledges that Bush critics were right that the terror alerts were being manipulated for political ends (he has no choice but to acknowledge that now that Ridge admits it), but still says journalists like himself were right to scorn such critics "because these folks based their assumption on gut hatred for President Bush, and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence." As always: even when the dirty leftist hippies are proven right, they're still Shrill, unSerious Losers who ever decent person and "journalist" scorns.
Ambinder's belief that there is nothing other than blind "Bush hatred" that could have justified such a belief -- and his accompanying self-defense that journalists like him had no way of knowing any of this -- is patently false.
Glenn also remembers what Dean said at the time. He remembers that once again he was proved right. He also remembers that the attacks on him were devastating.
Indeed, so strong was the stigma against those who said such things that Josh Marhsall felt compelled to insert this qualifier into the first paragraph of his column: "Now, I'm a respectable columnist. I don't want to draw rolled eyes. But think about it." And in 2004, after Howard Dean argued that the Bush administration was raising the terrorist alerts for political purposes, John Kerry proved his Seriousness by attacking Dean for making such an irresponsible claim.
..."That was because, as Atrios suggested, anyone like Dean who uttered such a suggestion was demonized as being among "the less stable among us," as right-wing war reporter Michael Totten put it in 2004, who proudly noted that "Kerry dismissed Dean's ravings the way a picnicker treats a fly buzzing around his barbecued chicken." An incredulous Chris Matthews interviewed Dean in 2004 about his accusations and could barely refrain from mocking Dean in every question.
Even Tom Ridge blasted Dean's words back then.
Even the very same Tom Ridge, in 2004, lambasted those who made such a suggestion:
The AP also reports that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge "spent a second day Wednesday defending the warnings, which came on the heels of the Democratic National Convention and drew attention from the presidential campaign of nominee John Kerry. 'I categorically state that the none of the terror threats are politically motivated,' Mr. Ridge said." Ridge also granted an extensive interview to CNN's Newsnight With Aaron Brown, in which he addressed the charges that the Administration was playing politics, saying, "I regret that there's an inference that this kind of public revelation of information is. . .political. It clearly was not and it never will be."
Glad to see Dean was right again, was not buried under the piles of BS every time he spoke. Glad to see he is trying hard to get real health care reform.
Tom Ridge does not appear to be denying it now.
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