Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge is now saying that he isn’t “second-guessing” his colleagues and was “never pressured” to raise the terrorism threat levels, despite writing in his new book that Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft “vigorously” pushed for him to do so a few days before the 2004 election. “There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None,” he writes. “I wondered, Is this about security or politics? Post-election analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the president’s approval rating in the days after the raising of the threat level.” Let’s all now collectively lower Tom Ridge’s color-coded credibility level to green. [USA Today]
