After the Nixon White House tapes were released, friends and I used to say, “Your most paranoid fears were true, after all.” The same may be said about the Bush years, with one change: rather than “your most paranoid fears,” make it “your worst hunches that those guys were sleazebags.”
Today, Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed something many Bush critics believed: the administration forced Ridge to raise the color-coded security alert in order to help Bush’s re-election campaign. Ridge, in his upcoming book about his time at DHS, says he knew the White House order was politically motivated, and he “considered resigning” because of it. Of course, he didn’t, and the security alert was raised, so Ridge’s consideration of resignation is, at this point, a big nothing.
Nonetheless, the revelation does confirm the Bush White House’s Karl Rove-derived view of everything, including important policy decisions, being political. And to think we’re still paying for those bozos’ policies.
This article appears in Aug 18-25, 2009.
Sure, they exploited America’s utter post 9/11 paranoia for the most base political reasons. Ridge’s book is not news. The only thing newsworthy is the fact that someone who was in the know is finally admitting it. He should have written his book five years ago.
I knew what was going on in the hours leading up to the election of 2004. It was so freaking obvious, you had to be an idiot to miss it.
On the first posting on my blog on June 2, 2006, I wrote the following:
“PREDICTION: George W. Bush will be remembered in history, primarily, as the first (pray last) former chief executive to go to federal prison. Sound crazy? Stay tuned.”
I stand by those words.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
You would have to have been totally blinded by ideology or party loyalty to not see what the Bush Administration was doing in real time.
But they do it because it works.
We are truly tribal in nature, and easily lead by fear-mongers.
Seeing Bush go to prison for his war crimes would be great. Not gonna happen though because it sets a bad precedent. A chief executive being held accountable for his actions? Not in today’s America.