Pointless, Abused, Faked Terrorism Threat Level System To Be Abolished

Remember in 2009 when former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge confessed that he'd been pressured to raise the terrorism threat level in order to help Dubya's 2004 campaign? And how that totally worked? Today Homeland Security announced that they are doing away with the color-coded system, effective in March. The new system will only announce known threats to specific locations, so they say.

On Iraq War: Maddow Vs. Ridge

Rachel Maddow tears in former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge on the legitimacy of the Iraq war. Required viewing.

Tom Ridge: Homeland Security Faked Terror Alerts For Dubya

Former director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge admits in his new book that he was pressured into faking terror alerts in order to help George W. Bush win reelection.

Dave Weigel, writing for the Washington Independent, notes that in the past, Ridge has denied manipulating security information for political reasons. In 2004, for example, he said, "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security." The Bush administration was forced to admit in the days after the 2004 alert that it was based on intelligence three or four years old. Officials then claimed there was a previously unmentioned "separate stream of intelligence" that justified the warning -- but offered little tangible information to support their new story. ThinkProgress recalls, the AP reported that "even 'some senior Republicans' privately questioned Ridge's timing of a terror alert that came just three days after the Democratic National Convention."

Not really surprising, is it? Most of us were suspicious at the time. Let's see if the GOP leadership of today takes any responsibility. Yeah, hold your breath.

John McCain: Pro-Choice Veep? OK! Pro-Gay Veep? NO WAY!

John McCain says it's OK for his veep to be pro-choice, like Tom Ridge, but not OK for him to be pro-gay, like Michael Bloomberg.

"I think it's a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a--albeit strong--but just it's a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far moreso than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues."

Don't you feel happy to know where you stand on John McCain's moral scale? How do the Log Cabinettes feel about their boy now? Remember their "secret" meeting with him? Remember how they defended his campaign's homphobic robo-calls in Florida? Nothing on their blog about this latest load of crap, of course.

UPDATE: Hoo boy. The Christian right is so not happy either.

McCain’s comments Wednesday to the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes that former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge’s pro-abortion rights views wouldn’t necessarily rule him out quickly found their way into the in-boxes of Christian conservatives. For those who have been anxiously awaiting McCain’s pick as a signal of his ideological intentions, there was deep concern that their worst fears about the Arizona senator may be realized.

“It absolutely floored me,” said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. “It would doom him in Ohio.” Burress emailed about a dozen “pro-family leaders” he knows outside Ohio and forwarded it to three McCain aides tasked with Christian conservative outreach. “That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates,” Burress wrote in the message.