I propose we add a new catagory of alert to the Terror Alert system. We need a Hooey Alert.
For instance, this weekend we would have been alerted that the terror threat was orange and the
hooey was red.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Much of the information obtained by al Qaeda that led the United States to raise terror alerts in Washington and New York was at least three years old, and U.S. officials are unsure if the group's surveillance continues, according to published reports on Tuesday.
They launch a national hysteria over three year old information? Three year old information about targeting financial icons in NYC?
(Hint to Tom Ridge:You can rewrite history to your heart's content, but you cannot prevent that which has already occured.)
The threat of a terrorist attack is something that should be taken seriously, but how seriously can you take the word of this administration? They have bad case of what used to be called credibility gap.
Is the Terror Alert the result of new developments? Apparantly the answer is "could be".
"You could say that the bulk of this information is old, but we know that al Qaeda collects, collects, collects until they're comfortable," a senior government official was quoted in the Times as saying. "Only then do they carry out an operation. And there are signs that some of this may have been updated or may be more recent."
It MAY be more recent? They threw 2 major cities into havoc on a MAYBE?
Naturally, it would be crude to consider the timing of this latest alert. The Dem convention, the record budget deficit report, the mediocre growth report would never be considered when issuing a terror alert. Right? At this point it would be fair to elevate the Hooey Alert to orange.
Just 2 days ago Ridge told us:
"Compared to previous threat reporting, these intelligence reports have provided a level of detail that is very specific," Ridge said. "The quality of this intelligence, based on multiple reporting streams in multiple locations, is rarely seen and is alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information."
Now, we learn it's mostly 3 years old information which
might have been recently updated. Taken on the whole, the Hooey Alert should go red here.
But in all fairness to Mr Ridge, he did tip us off to the hooey factor when he when issued the alert. Stumping for Bush from Homeland Security Office, Ridge told us:
This kind of information is the result of the President's leadership in the war against terror.
All of this hooey chatter!! I tell you, my hair's on fire!!