A rare two blog day..

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_RIDGE_TERROR_ALERT?SITE=UTSAC&SECTION=INTERNATIONAL&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT


As if the aura of deception and lies around former President Bush’s Administration wasn’t bad enough already, Tom Ridge comes out with a book.

Supposedly as Director of Homeland Security, he was heavily leaned on to raise the “terror alert level” just before the 2004 Presidential election. This, I feel, merely throws gasoline onto the already blazing fire of illegality that seemed to have plagued the Bush Administration. Not only have we learned that intelligence was “padded” or faked to create a link between Sadam Hussein and Al Qaida, but that government agencies were told to do certain things for ONLY political purposes.

Now Ridge does say that the Department of Homeland Security did not raise the level on this occasion despite the pressure but to me that doesn’t make this any better. In fact it makes me wonder how many times they DID raise it for simply political reasons. That entire election was centered around the idea that if a Democrat got elected to the White House, that the country would be in mortal peril from day one. If there were other times before the election when they were told to raise the threat level and did raise it, they could have very well swung that election.

To be fair, I do thank Tom Ridge, Scott McClellan, and Colin Powell for coming out and saying what they have said about the Bush Administration, however, I also question them. These three all seem to be reasonable, honorable, and righteous men. That being said, I have to wonder why they did not go public about such things while they were IN OFFICE! They were all in positions of power from which they could have drastically altered events. I know that you have to be loyal, especially in politics, to the people have put you into your positions but I also know that at some point you have to say enough is enough. By coming out after the fact, they seem to be saying “yeah there was bad shit going down but my career at the time was more important.” Sure, its easy to fight behind closed doors, but wouldn’t the right thing have been to take it out into the open when the closed door approach wasn’t working? I understand that some disagreements need to stay behind closed doors, but when lies are being weaved the way they were, then you have the RESPONSIBILITY to act! In the business world and in the justice system, anyone who knows wrongs are being, or are going to be, committed but who fail to stop them are often prosecuted along with the actual perpetrators. I admit that standing up to your bosses is not an easy thing, but who ever said that the RIGHT thing was the EASIEST thing.