In a new book coming out, Tom Ridge admits that while he was Secretary of Homeland Security, a cabinet level position created by the Bush administration, he was forced to raise the so-called "terror alerts" by the Bush White House. For most competent people, these "terror alerts" meant about as much as the "no cell phones while pumping gas" warning at any Exxon or Chevron. It looked more like something out of CTU than DHS.
Unfortunately, the 2004 presidential election wasn’t won by winning the votes of "most competent people."
It was won by fear.
It was won by winning the votes of the least competent among us.
It was won by winning the votes of those that now believe President Obama isn't American and that he's on his way to pull the plug on grandma.
And the simple change of yellow to orange, or orange to yellow, or however the fear color spectrum goes, was enough to scare those people into believing that somehow President Bush had done something to prevent another 9/11 (® Rudy Giuliani 2008).
Well of course he hadn’t. What he had successfully prevented, though, was following in the footsteps of his father in being a one-term president. Exit polls showed that voters who saw terrorism as the most important issue, voted an astoundingly 86% to put the man who was in charge of the country during the worst attack in our history, back into power.
So what do we have to learn from this? It seems with each month after the disastrous Bush administration ended, more leaks out about just how corrupt Mr. Bush and company was. Sure, it’s Halliburton, it’s KBR, it’s Blackwater—er, I mean "Xe," it’s Turd Blossom, it’s all of the same stuff Keith Olbermann has been turning red over since 2003. This is different. This is epically different. Sure, in the end DHS and Tom Ridge decided not to raise the terror alert level the Sunday before the election to "EVERYONE PANIC!" But the damage had been done in merely discussing the possibility, which is precisely what Mr. Blossom wanted. With each prior raising and lowering of the alert, the White House was controlling the electorate it was going to rely on to be sworn in for a second term.
Thankfully, the current administration put an end to the "terror alerts" and "the war on terror" and other terror-laden terms that were strewn about the West Wing. Are we completely safe from allowing an administration to control an electorate like that again? Probably not. But let’s call bullshit when we see it, regardless of party, even if it's on our side. And it just so happens that this time, just like death panels and Kenyan birth certificates, it's republican bullshit.