Did the Bush White House slant terror alerts to defeat John Kerry? Ask Tom Ridge

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has a new book out.

In “The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege,” the Pennsylvania Republican tells a story of how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft pressured him to raise the terror alert just before the 2004 election. He opted not to.

And he confesses that he regretted inserting language in an Aug. 1, 2004, terror alert – issued just as Democrat John Kerry was enjoying a post-convention bump in the polls -- that he now thinks might have been politically motivated. The language, requested by the White House, praised President Bush’s handling of the terrorist threat to national security. "I'm not going to second-guess [motive]," he told Time magazine. "But it was wrong for me to put it in."

But in a series of media interviews to promote the book, Ridge is urging Bush critics to “stop hyperventilating,” about the disclosures and citing his decision to override Rumsfeld and Ashcroft as proof that “the process worked.”

See what you think.

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Comments

[Mark C]

Frankly, there is no need to hyperventilate at this point in time. For those of us who watched the 2004 election closely, the revelations in Ridge's new book only confirm what was obvious in 2004. Many of us were hyperventilating then, when we witnessed the correlation between the rise in terror alerts when positive poll numbers or positive news went in favor of Senator Kerry. The timeline reinforces this conclusion. The Bush administration abused their authority position to benefit them in the 2004 election. Politics definitely played a role in determining when the alerts were raised. The administration knew this was an easy way to instill fear in the voters who might be considering changing the leadership in this country.
Ridge is backpedaling now, probably to protect his image within the Republican Party.

[We59]

So Ted Kennedy writes a bill to stop the repubs. from appointing a repub to office after a demo leaves and it passed. Now Kennedy and the demos want that same bill reversed so they can appoint a demo to office. These demos are the worst of hypocrites. How politically motivated can you get?

[CCoper]

Personally, it doesn't matter if the Bush administration did that. I would not have voted for John Kerry anyway. Both sides are guilty of manipulation and lying to achieve their motives and political aspirations. We as an american people continue to allow it by voting those people back into office.