Kerry was Right - Terror Alert in NYC: “Driven by Political Concerns?”

[kerrygoddess]

Terror Alert in NYC: “Driven by Political Concerns?”
October 7th, 2005

Yesterday I posted about the Terror Alert in NYC, and questioned why Mayor Bloomberg held a National Press Conference announcing they had received a “credible threat” yet Homeland Security denied there was a threat.

Today, Tim Grieve on Salon’s War Room notes a conversation with “John Kerry last May” where Kerry “complained to us about the boy-who-cried-wolf nature of the Bush administration’s terror warnings.” Grieve notes that “Kerry was right.”

Maybe all those orange alerts had been justified by intelligence reports, Kerry told us, but maybe they’d been driven by political concerns, too. “I just have no way to measure it,” he said. “Instead of feeling absolutely confident, I have no way of measuring it.”

Grieve says, “It turned out that Kerry was right to be concerned.”

MORE & LINK - http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=789

[blm]

1. That's the problem. Reporters will now say Kerry was right then, but back

then few were even reporting fully what he was saying so he could be shown RIGHT before the election.

[Der Blaue Engel]

2. "It turned out that Kerry was right..."

I think we're going to be hearing those words a lot in coming months. Suddenly, people will remember hearing everything he said after all.

[NYCGirl]

3. And remember when Howard Dean said this on CNN

on Blitzer's show back in August of 2004? Boy, did he get SLAMMED for that!

And I want to immediately get your reaction to both of these developing stories. First, the decision by the federal government, the Department of Homeland Security, to increase the threat level here in Washington, D.C., from yellow to orange, from elevated to high. What do you make of this?

HOWARD DEAN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF VERMONT: It's hard to know what to make. None of us outside the administration have access to the intelligence, which led to this determination.

I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush he plays this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion that "I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America stick with me," and then out comes Tom Ridge.

It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it.

BLITZER: Well, when you say that, that's a very serious allegation, that the federal government, Tom Ridge, the president of the United States, may be playing politics with the whole issue of fear and terror threat levels. And I want you to explain specifically, so there's no confusion, what you mean by that.

DEAN: What I mean by that is the president himself has played politics with it. The president is basing his political campaign for re-election on the notion that he ought to be re-elected because terrorism is a danger, and his case to the American people is, "I'm the only person who can get us through this." So of course this is politics.

The question is, do I believe this is being fabricated? No, of course I don't believe that. But I do think that there is politics in this, and the question is, how much is politics and how much is a real threat?

I have no doubt there's a real threat here, but I also -- this is a long history of orange to yellow, yellow to orange, orange to yellow without a lot of explanation.

I find that the warnings -- watch out for somebody walking into buildings, watch out for somebody driving cars, watch out for somebody driving a truck -- that's not very helpful in New York City. It would be very helpful if the federal government would be much more specific about exactly what they'd like to us watch out for as they're raising all these levels.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0408/01/le.00.html

Here are some of the slams from Media Matters:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408030006

[texpatriot2004]

8. Yes, Dean said it too and he got slammed just like Kerry did.

Thanks for this transcript.

[The Doctor.]

13. Let's not forget Tom Ridge coming out

and all but saying that the alerts were someone's tool;

"More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it," Ridge told reporters. "Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' "

- That's right, Ridge turned around and admitted that the threat levels were being unecessarily raised.

Yes, Americans are being played for sheep.

{edit}- http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-05-10-ridge-alerts_x.htm

[Cha]

34. And if these are Bogus

threats then bloomberg should pay dearly..the ultimate pay day.

[texpatriot2004]

4. Thanks KerryGoddess for this post. Recommended. This is an

important topic and it's reprehensible that people would use "terror" politically.

[shraby]

5. Keith Olbermann brought that up

on his show last night.

[kerrygoddess]

6. KO said...

Kerry was right?

[texpatriot2004]

7. Hmm I didn't get the Kerry was right part from KO. Did he say

that? I must have missed it. I watched KO though. He did make the connection very clear between bad news for * and TERRA.

[shraby]

12. K.O. didn't mention Kerry, but did go into

the connection between * poll numbers and/or troubles and the terror alerts last year.

[OneTwentyoNine]

20. Yeah...said that MSNBC confirmed 13 put-up Terra alerts....

The last being in 04 around the time of the Convention for Dems. If they had any guts they'd do a fucking video and show EACH and EVERY one of the 13 FAKE terra alerts and how it corresponded to trouble in the Bush WH.

[texpatriot2004]

9. I hope this gets recommended for the greatest page. It deserves

to be there; especially after the recent "bushit" alarms.

[AirAmFan]

10. Don't forget about the NYC mayoral election Bloomberg faces next month

Consider the TIMING of Bloomberg's press conference yesterday. MINUTES before evening newscasts, but long enough ahead so that Bloomberg got a plum photo-op, trying to look "decisive" on network news. He did not leave the networks enough time to vet the seriousness of the "threat"--apparently from an Iraqi Chicken Little.

Was Bloomberg grandstanding for free network TV advertising, a month before NYC voters go to the polls? I find it STUNNING that no MSM outlet even mentioned the upcoming NYC election.

[electron_blue]

11. So, raising the alert level for political reasons, makes Bush a

terrorist, right?

Or am I missing something?

[The Doctor.]

15. Not at all...

It was a simple system they misused for the purpose of manipulating the American people.

Every time the 'Terror Alert Level' was raised, the news media would stop what they were doing and talk incessantly about it. They would drop important stories, they wouldn't cover protests, they would spend more time on speculation over the threats than they would on REAL news.

And if you pay close attention, you'll see that the terror alerts almost always coincided with something potentially harmful to Bush.

In fact ONE of those alerts was issued the day of Kerry's very important speech at the Democratic national convention.
The media went nuts trying to figure out 'why the alert'... which led directly to the loss of a MAJOR anti-terrorism asset, Mohammed Naem Noor Khan.

Even worse... it was the White House who outed him as a double-agent inside Al-Qaeda in order to justify the alert.

-utter incompetence-

[TayTay]

25. That's not the end of the story, either

The Brits were looking into whether or not the outing of Mohammed Naem Noor Khan burnt a source in London. This may have contributed to the bombings and the deaths this past July.

Nothing comes between this gang of thugs and their objective, not reason, not love of country and certainly not the desire to deter terrorism. They only care about money and making sure they keep it rolling in.

[The Doctor.]

29. Two things;

1) To be fair, there is still some uncertainty about whether Khan was outed by the White House (Rice herself), or by Pakistani officials with connections to US media.

In fact it was Juan Cole who pointed this out;

http://www.antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=3382

-So the Pakistani Government and the White House are pointing fingers at each other.
But with the track record of this administration, I can't rule out their incompetence. After all, Condi did, in fact, confirm Khan's status on Wolf Blitzer's show.

2) There is more than money at stake here. This 'gang of thugs', though they may be, truly believe in the American Empire.
Read up on the PNAC and you'll see that they have monumental ambition... and not an ounce of competence.

[texpatriot2004]

26. That's a very good point you make here. Thanks for the post. n/t

[The Doctor.]

30. Why do I have the feeling that

'electron_blue' may not follow up on that?

It seems odd that she would assume so much without seeking information.
I do hope she returns to this post.

[texpatriot2004]

31. A curiousity it is. n/t

[despairing optimist]

14. Hint: Mayor of NYC is running for reelection

Mike Bloomberg has already spent more than $46 million, outspending his Democratic opponent, Freddie Ferrer, by more than 7 to 1. Recall that four years ago, right after 9/11, then-mayor Rudy Giuliani was finishing up his last term thanks to the two-term limit, and there was a cry among some to suspend the law for Rudy's sake. Enter Mike Bloomberg, erstwhile lifelong Democrat until he decided to run for mayor and realized he couldn't win the Dem primary; he had a miraculous conversion on the gold-paved road to politics and switched parties to in effect buy the Republican nomination and, thanks to the events of 9/11 and Rudy's coattails (which had just as miraculously gone from radioactive on 9/10 to gorgeously irresistible a day later), win the mayoral election in 2001.

This time around, however, Bloomberg doesn't have as easy a time because he has a record to defend, one that hasn't been as beneficent as his ads would have the public believe. Ferrer is capitalizing on dissatisfaction with having a billionaire mayor who, though faithfully taking the subway to work every day, pilots his own big jet to his Bermuda estate, entertains GOP bigwigs, and readily opens his wallet to any Republican candidate to prove he remains a loyal convert to his new faith. That image doesn't sit well with most of the NYC electorate he purports to serve.

Bloomberg likely took a gamble that seizing this dubious terror threat as a chance before the election to show he's tough on terror and will "err on the side of caution," as he put it, will set aside doubts about his worthiness for a second term. Of course alarming the public and grandstanding can also backfire, and Ferrer may see an opening to instill doubt in Bloomberg's judgment where it hadn't appeared before. After refusing to debate Ferrer recently, Bloomberg has been on the defensive, and the terror alert may make him more so. What exactly do most New Yorkers have in common with a billionaire who, although a successful entrepreneur and empire builder, nevertheless had to switch tracks as well as cross them to realize his political ambitions?

[kerrygoddess]

16. Be it Bloomberg or BushCo

It just ain't right!

[despairing optimist]

24. Ah, "right" and "should." Such quaint words in the era of Bush Inc.

As that great Nation ad that's on Air America goes, that's not the way the Bushies operate. To have lived through the Nixon era was bad enough, and now comes this one. Here's hoping it's the last of the baddies.

[converted_democrat]

17. I called both of my Senators and asked them to investigate this. n/t

[flpoljunkie]

18. With GOP ratings in toilet, mid-terms looming, it's "terra, terra, terra!"

[robbedvoter]

19. Like I needed kerry to remind me that it's election time in NYC

and Bloomberg just caught some flack for avoiding a debate yesterday!

[blm]

21. Except the point of the article was that Kerry said this last year during

the campaign, but reporters were still letting Bush slide on all the convenient terror alerts. Just like most everything else Kerry said that was ignored by most of the media.

[Dr Fate]

22. KERRY needs to say this- not a blogger. n/t

n/t

[kerrygoddess]

32. Darn Dr F...

Ain't KG good enough? LOL! Personally I would love to hear "I was right", "I was right", "I was right" from JK. I would also love to hear more Bloggers echo this call.

[Dr Fate]

33. I take it back- Bloggers DO need to repeat this. But so does Kerry. n/t

n/t

[mzmolly]

23. I am glad this is finally getting mainstream media attention.

At least a little MSM attention.

[GetTheRightVote]

27. Thias is all true, I only wish that Kerry were in the WH instead

:kick:

[politicasista]

28. me too.

:kick: