Terror alert level raised for political reasons, says the man who raised it

Today, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge admitted that the reason why the terror alert was raised a level before the 2004 election had nothing to do with terrorism.

Instead, it was part of a strategy devised by the Bush campaign to help ensure his re-election that year. Apparently the campaign pressured Ridge to find an excuse to raise the terror alert level in the weeks before the 2004 election until he went along with it, despite having no intelligence suggesting that an attack was any more likely than it had been.

Remember that Mr. Ridge, a former Republican Governor or Pennsylvania who earlier this year was still being courted by national Republicans to run against Arlen Specter in the Senate race next year, was President Bush's hand-picked first Secretary of Homeland Security. Hardly the bomb-throwing liberal that some on the right would suggest must make this kind of accusation. But he was a Bush White House insider and as the person who actually did raise the alert level he certainly knew very well why he was raising it.

Let's also remember that when liberals dared to suggest that any kind of national security policy might be political, the Republicans would always wave the bloody flag of 9/11 and impugn their patriotism.

This wasn't all that long ago, after all, even an elephant can remember a few years back.