Perfect Timing

Hmm...we've got another threat to President Bush's approval ratings and re-election prospects, so it must be time to publicize another scary terrorist plot!

Have you ever noticed that the really big and splashy alerts just happen to be mounted whenever the Administration gets into trouble? Earlier this year, when the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal was poised to (further) demolish the White House's credibility, Attorney General John Ashcroft loudly announced that seven supposed al Qaeda terrorists were on the loose in America. The only problem was that they were already known to law enforcement and there was no reason to believe they were actually in the country. And to top it off, other departments, including Homeland Security, the FBI and local law enforcement, were not notified before Ashcroft went before the cameras. A few weeks later, when Bush's approval ratings hit a new low, out came a warning saying al Qaeda wanted to disrupt the Presidential election in November.

Now we have what may be the latest example. On Sunday afternoon, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge announced on live television the uncovering of a new al Qaeda plot to attack financial buildings using car or truck bombs. "In light of new intelligence information," he said gravely, "we have made the decision to raise the threat level for this sector, in these communities, to bring protective resources to an even higher level."

He specifically mentioned the New York Stock Exchange and the Citicorp building in New York, the Prudential Financial building in Newark, and the IMF and World Bank buildings in Washington as possible targets.

"The quality of this intelligence, based on multiple reporting streams in multiple locations, is rarely seen and it is alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information," he said.

It was loud, it was scary, and it had all the media buzzing.

But it also started to gather skepticism even before the end of the news cycle for several reasons:

1. The "new intelligence" was not new at all, it was actually several years old (pre-9/11, in fact) and had been ignored until now.
2. Ridge finished his announcement by saying, "We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the President's leadership in the war against terror."
3. It was announced right after the Democratic convention, wiping out any post-convention "bounce" Senator John Kerry might have enjoyed in the polls.

One senior law enforcement official was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, "There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new." Others questioned the alert's timing as well.

So here we are again, with what suspiciously sounds like more of the same. Doubtless, whenever such a very public announcement is made, some al Qaeda elements might be scared off of whatever they're plotting by the increased security. But it also has the effect of scaring the American people as well, and when people are scared, we instinctively rally round the leader.

And it just so happens that this alert was loudly announced right after the Democratic convention, pushing Kerry out of the spotlight after several days of uninterrupted coverage.

Coincidence? Maybe. But the Bush Administration has had too many such coincidences before. Whenever something ugly is uncovered or a Democrat takes center stage on anything, a loud and frightening terror alert hits the airwaves more often than not, and the nation's attention is instantly brought back to the Oval Office and its current occupant.

The White House is naturally shocked, shocked at any suggestion that politics might play a role in such alerts. But having been caught at it before, they have only themselves to blame for such speculation.

Some things really should just be above being exploited for political gain, the nation's security being one of them. It remains to be seen whether the Bush Administration will ever realize that.