Tom Ridge, the federal official in charge of defending the United States against terrorism, was on message when he told a July 14 news conference: “We don’t do politics at Homeland Security.” Such high-level claims of patriotic purity have been routine since 9/11. But in this election year, they’re more ludicrous than ever.
Days earlier, alongside a photo of Ridge, a headline on USA Today’s front page had declared: “Election Terror Threat Intensifies.” There was unintended irony in the headline.
While a real threat of terrorism exists in the United States, we should also acknowledge that an intensifying “election terror threat” is coming from the Bush administration. With scarcely 100 days to go until Election Day, the White House is desperate to wring every ounce of advantage from the American Flag, patriotism, apple pie — and the subject of “terrorism.”
Newsweek reported a week after July Fourth that Ridge’s agency “asked the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to analyze what legal steps would be needed to permit the postponement of the election were an attack to take place.” The media response was mostly negative, and the Bush administration proceeded with its intended dual message of portraying a postponement as far-fetched — yet not quite unthinkable…
Read the full column.
Also, see the documentary Hijacking Catastrophe.