Ridge OK With Not Raising Terror Status

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Friday he saw no contradiction in the government's renewed public warning of likely terrorist attack and its unwillingness to raise the official terror alert level.

The country remains on "yellow," the midlevel stage of the five-step terror alert program administered by Ridge's department, set up after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that killed some 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Appearing Friday on morning network news shows, Ridge denied that the Bush administration was talking publicly of a threat - without increasing the official alert status - to insulate itself from criticism in the event an attack happens.

"I would say to those who would criticize this kind of public statement that if you ask the homeland security officials at the state and local level, they get it. They understand," he said on CBS's "The Early Show."

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040709/D83N8OEG1.html

[Walt Starr]

1. They're saving it for after their convention

If they raise it now, there's only one place it can go from here and that's panic stage.

They're saving code orange for October so they can go code red right ebofre the election.

You NEVER advertise a new product before labor day.

[aden_nak]

2. Oh, so the officials understand, do they?

Because I think I understand, too. I think I understand that you guys came up with this absurd "color coded" terror alert rhetoric so that every American, no matter how little interest they take in current events, and no matter how shafted by the American education system, can understand just how afraid they should feel. I think I understand that the alert spikes whenever there's another story in the news that BushCo doesn't want people to pay attention to. I think I understand that you're just another thimbleheaded prick, doing what you're told, towing the line for a facists group of NeoCons that intend on using the shambles of our own political system to turn us into serfs.

Yeah, I think I understand. And if I'm wrong, feel free to enlighten me, you placeholder, empty-suit son of a bitch.