Question one: With some, attitude is all they have. If a nuke took out Vatican City today, they'd head over to Fark and write "woot! Teh P0pe was in my dead pool."

Quetion Two: Rather, if something does happen on a Red day, who will be the first to shout "Bush Knew"? Or, conversely, he didn't, and therefore must be blamed if terrorists slip over from Canada and drive a fertilizer bomb up to the Mall of America.

Failure can never result from the magnitude of the task; it can only result from perfidy or incompetence.

Well, personally, I'd hope there is a rigorous investigation no matter what kind of a day it is.

But anyway, Mitch - Jason Goray here, couldn't find your email - I'm probably opening myself up to getting kicked around, but if you have some spare time, I'd be interested in your comments on some of the things I've been discussing on my web log ( http://www.xanga.com/rphaedrus ). The latest post involves both education and the Dakotas, so I naturally thought of you.

Unfortunately, xanga requires an account to leave comments, but if you want, there's an account open for anyone to use: the username is anybody_anyone and the password is "freetouse" - please don't change the password.

The problem is not Ridge telling people to be vigilant. The problem is that he stands up and says, essentially: "Don't forget to be afraid! The terrorists could strike at any second! We have some information that they might! Um, we don't have any specific information. And...uh...well...it's not really all that serious because we don't feel it's time to raise the threat level. And...um...er...well...okay, there's really not anything we can specifically tell you to do. But be afraid! Be very afraid!"

Look, I know the terrorists could strike at any moment. That's what terrorists do. My problem with Ridge is not that he shouldn't warn us about real threats--it's that he'll warn us whether or not a real threat exists. And that isn't helpful at all. After a while, boy-who-cried-wolf ennui sets in.

And let's face it: the timing of this warning wasn't just suspect, it was obvious. If the Bushies were half as concerned about fighting the WOT as they were about leveraging it for political gain, they'd be beating Kerry solidly right now.

Instead, drop by my site. There's a link to the latest Electoral College projection. Hint: 500 votes isn't gonna be the margin this time.

Wow. "Instead, drop by my site." What elitism.

Anyway, given how much the administration has been raked over the coals for not warning people that terrorists might attack in 9/01, I pretty much expect it to tell us constantly that one might come until it leaves office. Come on, the press ripped Bush a new one because he wasn't clarivoyant, and now oyu expect them stay silent until they have information too snestive to release? ( When you have hard evidence of an attack including time, place, etc, the /last/ thing you do is announce it. )

Further, /who/ is leveraging the WOT for political gain? At least the Bush administration picks a stand and stays with it. Most Democrats have two or three, and Kerry keeps vilifying Bush for letting war happen...as if we had a choice in the matter. All the announcement did was interrupt the two Johns from politicising the war for a day or two. Boo hoo.

Jeff,

I'm continually amazed at the Democrats' inability to see the WOT as anything but an opportunity for politics.

By the way, it IS unreasonable to expect Ridge et al to give all the details for the changes in the alert level; the information most likely comes from intelligence sources - giving out details would risk burning sources. Bad as the CIA is, intentionally burning sources is a gift that'll keep giving for a generation or two (indeed, the source-burning that happened in the mid-seventies and eighties is probably causing us untold problems now).

As to your prediction - more later.

> If the Bushies were half as concerned about
> fighting the WOT as they were about leveraging it
> for political gain, they'd be beating Kerry
> solidly right now.

Piffle. This is quite revealing. Since Democrats see every topic, every issue, everything as a political opportunity, they assume everyone else does as well.

If the Republicans were half as interested in leveraging the WoT for political gain as the Democrats, they might be leading the polls, but they'd be losing the war. Iraq would still be Saddam's, the big discussion would be how many children were being killed by the embargo, the Oil-for-Food program would still be pumping billions to various UN & European entities (and a few Americans), it wouldn't yet be known of, and France would be still be considered both Important and a Friend. Just to name a few things.

I just don't see where you are coming from Jeff. If Bush was concerned about the polls and being political, he would have never invaded Iraq and we'd be doing what exactly to fighting terrorism??? It was conventional wisdom leading up to the war that it was Bush's war, sink or swim he was betting his canidicy on it. They didn't fabricate the WMD info, SIC proves this, if they knew they were not there they wouldn't have made that the case. Sure, we might have more troops in Afghanistan, but it is not like there are large organized groups operating there. Any known clusters are repeatedly attacked. The main threat was Iraq, Syria, North Korea, Libya and the international funding. You can definitely argue about Saudia Arabia, but short of "regime change" there what more can we do? The dumbest thing Al-queda did was strike civilians there, now the Saudia's are at least playin ball and recognize the threat. Three of those five have been greatly reduced, with Syria and NK up next, pending the election. The Patriot act has done much, I work in the finance world and the new regulations and continuing ed has all focused on "soft money, cash, truly know your client" to root out much of those "shady" accounts. I just don't hear anything from Kerry on what exactly he would do....France is NOT the solution yet that is all he really campaigns on.

I take it back. If the Republicans were half as interested in leveraging the WoT for political gain as the Democrats, they'd be in a worse position in the polls. The people who take this thing seriously would be uninterested in even voting and most, if not all Democrats would *still* be anti-Bush.