Fans eagerly await former Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Tom Ridge’s new book entitled,
The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…and How We Can Be Safe again. Secretary Ridge had not intended to write a ‘tell all’ book but he grew increasingly concerned over our complacency over matters of security.
Promotional material from Thomas Dunne Books includes:
Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.
Tom Ridge stands out, like Colin Powell, as a respected stateman who places country over politics. His new book is bound to stir up a hornet’s nest.
“What Tom Ridge disclosed confirms our worst suspicions,” said Sen. Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who criticized the color-coded system back in 2003. “Just like they did in Iraq, the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence to cause fear in the public to further its political goals.”
The book comes out September 1. It is predicted to be a best-seller. I hope it will be available on Kindle immediately.
[UPDATE: Just to be ‘fair and balance’ the Bush admin. response will be posted.]
UPDATE: Former Bush administration officials are vehemently denying Ridge’s statements.
“We went over backwards repeatedly and with great discipline to make sure politics did not influence any national security and homeland security decisions,” former White House chief of staff Andy Card told Politico. “The clear instructions were to make sure politics never influenced anything.”
“Under no circumstance was Tom Ridge or anyone else directed to change the threat level,” former homeland security adviser Frances Townsend said. “It didn’t work that way, and it certainly didn’t work that way in 2004. It was always an apolitical process.”
I don’t have any trouble believing the Bush administration did this. I just wish it didn’t pale in comparison to the corruption we’re getting now.
And if that is going on, it will have its day in the sun. Like all corruption, it takes a while to creep out. Slowpoke, what do you see now that you think is corruption. Spill it!
Tom Ridge demonstrated a fundamental lack of character for not refusing to follow this order at the time to the point of resigining rather than complying. He could have at least “leaked it to the press”, the time honored way disrailing things like this.
To share it now in the interests of promoting book sales demonstrates he is no gentlemen.
I am not sure leaks are the gentleman way of handling things either. Time honored, yes, real honor, no.
There’ve been how many guys like Ridge who have kept their silence and then wrote critical books? What we need is an atmosphere where people with concerns feel free to speak up and have their concerns addressed in real time. Keeping a mouth shut and a smile on the face and waiting until it’s too late to make any difference to raise a concern doesn’t help.
I guess all the speculation will be great for book sales.
Guapo, I am not sure how that would ever happen. Maybe in a perfect world….
All of these are just more reasons why I basically hate politics.
Actually, Moon-howler, those of us who spent some time in some of these circles consider the leak a finesse move… a good way to quietly influence Government and policy from the inside… and the press keeps us honest thanks to fact checking. Remember deep throat?
Oh, Lord, too many to mention, and you could start with the current #1 bestseller from Michelle Malkin (and it’s all facts). Or have a peek at the Dems going after Insurance companies, anyone want a jet?, check out Axelrod’s financial interests in health care reform. You could literally fill books with bullet points of each item.
Michelle Malckin? Ann Coulter’s angry little sister?
Now am I suppoised to believe that during the Bush administration all was ok except for this one little bitty gaffe over the terror alerts and oh…Valery Plume and that the entire Obama administration is rife with corruption? Pretty quick work for only being on office 7 months.
Is the Axelrod financial interest the republic version of the Halliburton/Cheney get rich quick scheme?
Meanwhile, is it possible that the terror alert would have been changed for an election? Would Cheney have stooped that low?
“National security” was a good campaign slogan, but when the chips were on the table it was more important to borrow a little terror from the terrorism they were supposedly at war with. Just to win an election. I think this is the lowest scummiest thing you can do as a leader. Terrorize your own people just so you can enrich yourself, corrupt our democracy, and defraud the public coffers for another 4 years.
Actually, the “itty bitty gaffe” isn’t backed up by Ridge in his forthcoming book. He states rather plainly that he was never directed to change the alert level because of the election. The line that caused this uproar was “at the time, I wondered if it was political”. So the left, unencumbered by facts, turns this “I wondered” into “it actually happened”. Facts is facts….Cheney-Haliburton, yep. Axelrod, Biden (his son), the Dem list goes on forever. Both sides suck, and I’m not looking to attack the left, but if they push, the truth must push back.
Why is it that when a Republican comes clean and admits the truth about an affair or terrorizing America, there is always a little racist moniker man to come on here and defend them? Doesn’t anything make you want to stand up for America first before the Republican party? Not even the use of lies and terror to make you afraid enough to steal your vote? Please.
So you are saying Tom Ridge did NOT say that he was pressured into changing an alert? I actually got part of my post off of some right wing site and they were giving him hell. I guess not everyone got the memo that it was just a rumor.
M-H, this book clearly states that Ridge was pressured to up the terror on we the people just prior to the 2004 election. He resisted, but felt so slimy that he resigned 30 days later. I compare him to Colin Powell. Anyone in that administration with credibility was used to spread the fear. Otherwise they were shut out of the decision making process.
When the book comes out next week, Ridge will be on TV expanding on what is in the book. I’m sure that Dick Cheney is leaning on him pretty hard in the mean time not to divulge any more than what is already in the book. Ridge only talked about one time that he was pressured to use the DHS to terrorize Americans. But it was used over and over again during the 2004 election year. Inquiring minds want to know how many of those were also borrow from bin Landen terrorism.
Shellyb, I am confused. Everyone seems to know a lot about a book that hasn’t published. I sure thought I read an exerpt that said he was pressured.
Well, I never defended Mark Sanford, never even tried….but I doubt that made it over to the other plane of existence you’re living in. Terrorizing American, that was pretty funny, though!
I had the priveledge of meeting Tom Ridge on multiple occasions when I was a professional make up artist working for CNN and MSNBC. I could not say that every person I did make up was a priveledge, often it was a test of my willingness to forgoe rudeness in order to keep my job. Tom Ridge was ALWAYS personable, always polite, respectful, and genuinely interested in people around him. At the time I was working on my graduate degree and he would ask what I was studying or how long I had lived in the area, etc etc. He also has a hearing impairment, I’m not sure how bad, but he needed hearing aids.
Although I agree with the premise that when bad things are happening in government it is imperative to speak up, that is easier said than done. Look at what happened to Valerie Plame’s, Joe Wilson, after he accused Dick Cheney of spreading mistruths about the “yellow cake” from Nigeria. She was outed and he was villified.
Michelle Malkin = Vicious Vixen
I wouldn’t believe anything she writes. She and Anne Coulter are two of a kind – beautiful but NASTY!
@Slowpoke Rodriguez
And what corruption is that? Specifics, please.
Can you imagine the outcry if Obama had done even half the things that Bush did? Like planting a gay, male prostitute in White House press conferences to pose as a reporter asking favorable questions? Or knowingly telling bald-faced lies to Congress and the U.N. about national security? Or funneling huge loads of money to contractors that were known to be defrauding the government?
Oh yeah — there’s that part of the terror attacks coming after Bush refused to read his own intelligence briefings. Imagine what the right-wing noise machine would be screaming if Obama had done that!