Bush Raised Threat Level for Politial Reasons

The Washington Post reports, Ridge Cites Pressure Before 2004 Election to raise the threat level for political reasons.

"Former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, the first director of the Department of Homeland Security, says that he was pressured by other agency heads to raise the terrorism threat level on the eve of the 2004 presidential election -- a move he rejected as having political undertones. The disclosure comes in promotional materials for Ridge's new book, due out Sept. 1, in which he writes that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft tried to pressure him to raise the threat level."

Marc Ambinder says Don't Cry for Tom Ridge and that " Our skepticism about the activists' conclusions was warranted because these folks based their assumption on gut hatred for President Bush, and not on any evaluation of the raw intelligence." Marcy Wheeler calls him out on it, Ambinder: Sorry I Was So Stupid, But I Was Right To Be Stupid. Ambinder updated his post. Brad DeLong wasn't satisfied, and his link to a Ron Suskind article, What Bush Meant, is a must-read.

Of course it's Glenn Greenwald who covers the topic most completely in Fringe leftist losers: wrong even when they're right. Also as usual, his Updates at the bottom of the post are even better than the article, including pointing out this bit from Atrios: "And just so it's clear: using the threat of terrorism to try to achieve political goals is, you know, what terrorists do."

I'm curious to see the full allegations when Ridge's book comes out. At the time of these incidents the raises did seem a bit coincidental. If the Bush administration really did this, I want him prosecuted, because Atrios is right, that's terrorism itself. Though we'll probably never have enough evidence to convict.