Now He Tells Us

Several years ago, quite a few people noticed a distinct pattern to how the Administration blared scary terrorist warnings - namely, that a disproportionate number of them were announced in such a way as to offset bad publicity or to ratchet up the fear level in advance of the 2004 election. MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann called it "the nexus of politics and terror" and often commented on how terror plots were foiled with such perfect timing.

Now we know that was no coincidence. Tom Ridge, President Bush's first Secretary of Homeland Security who resigned less than a month after the 2004 election, has come forward to confirm what so many of us already suspected - that the terror alert system was blatantly politicized to bolster Bush's poll numbers and to ensure his re-election.

In his upcoming book The Test of Our Times, Ridge writes that when a new Osama bin Laden videotape surfaced only a few days before the election, he was pressured to raise the alert level despite the lack of any actual need for it: "There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. 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."

Not surprisingly, other former Administration insiders have disputed his claim, but it all comes together. Prior to the election, it was obvious that the system was being misused. Terror alerts were issued in such a way as to wipe out Democratic poll advantages, divert from whistle-blower testimony about the FBI's pre-9/11 activities (or lack thereof) and distract from the Abu Ghraib revelations. And the number of alerts dropped off sharply right after the election, when they were no longer needed so urgently.

But really, we should not be surprised. After all, the Bush team politicized everything, from the criminal justice system to science to 9/11 itself. Every function of government was twisted to serve not the nation, but George W. Bush and the Republican Party.

Disgusted, yes, but not surprised.