Ridge Confirms That Terror Alerts Were Politicized

A sad revelation in the autobiography of Tom Ridge, the inaugural Homeland Security Chief:

Tom Ridge confirms a long-held suspicion among Bush critics, writing in his new autobiography that he "was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush's re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over."

While it is good on Mr. Ridge, someone long respected for his political honesty, to have resigned, as well as to follow one of the unwritten rules of politics by not revealing this until after the Bush administration ended, it is a sad day for Republicans that we find ourselves seeing that some liberal conspiracies were true.

It is also unfortunate, because this blog now finds itself complimenting President Obama for keeping the Terror Alert level out of the news and downplaying it (while not taking away the transparency.)

Source: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0809/Politicizing_the_terror_alerts.html?showall

Favre To Join Vikings

Good to know that Favre is still in the same condition as he's always been:

A flip-flopper who puts himself before the team.

Pelosi: Protestors and Disrupters are "Very American" In '06

Wow...I really hope we use this in an ad, and soon.

Hypocrisy

So, Republicans are teabaggers/swift boaters/disrupters/all around horrible people when we protest and show how pissed off we are.

Ok, media and liberals. So I guess all of these, which never got the kind of dismissive treatment the current protests are receiving, are absolutely different:

Or this:

Somehow, what conservatives are doing right now seems pretty effing tame. The level of anger I feel right now towards the media...let's just say that it is good that this is a written blog.

Hat Tip: Various Commenters on As Maine Goes

Real Change?

For the most part, the President's flips from his campaign have either been welcomed (Iraq, EFCA) or expected (the fact that the moderate candidate turned into the most liberal president since Lyndon B. Johnson), but some consistinces with the Bush administration are just sad and clearly support the thesis that once you have power, you don't want to give it up:

Democrats consistently ripped President Bush for his "signing statements" on bills -- which essentially gave the administration a legal out to ignore certain provisions in laws.

But now President Obama is doing the same thing -- and his own party is just as unhappy.

Four top Democrats sent a letter to the president Tuesday, saying they were "surprised" that Obama, in signing the war supplemental spending bill, declared he would not be bound by limits on International Monetary Fund money.

Obama has argued that the stringent limitations on IMF funding would interfere with his constitutional authority to conduct foreign relations and diplomacy.

Read More: http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0709/Dem_chairmen_warn_Obama_on_signing_statements.html

Chris Dodd's Lobbyist Hypocrisy

Sen. Chris Dodd’s recent anti-lobbyist comments have drawn a big laugh at the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

“It is worth noting that over the years you have accepted nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from lobbyists and millions more from PACs,” NRSC Executive Director Rob Jesmer wrote to Dodd. “In fact, during the second quarter of this year alone, almost 40 percent of your total contributions came from PACs.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25132.html#ixzz0LpIFeAd5

Obama Pretends That He Underestimated The Crisis

Barack Obama's advisors want us to believe that he did not know that revenues were going to be weak when he wrote the FY 2010 budget earlier this year.

Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisors, said in a POLITICO interview that the administration — like many independent economists — did not fully anticipate the severity and pace of this recession. She said the White House will be updating its official forecasts.

Another challenge was that the slowdown “was going from a relatively normal recession into
something much worse, and we were at a pivot point, if not a turning point,” Romer said.

"Relatively normal recession"? That was not what Obama was saying at the time. The focal point of the last two months of his campaign (besides "Yes, We Can" rhetoric) was discussion of the worst crisis since the Great Depression. Once elected, he used the severity of the crisis to claim that we needed a massive expansion of government spending and power. Here is him speaking on the topic as President-elect:



There are only two answers to this apparant contradiction. He was either playing up the severity of the crisis to increase the government's control over the economy (as his Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel said, "you never waste a crisis.") Or, more likely, he downplayed the severity during his budget because he knew there was no way to appease his deficit hawk AND liberal progressive supporters at once, and showing that he could expand health care and stifle growth with Cap-and-Trade while still working the post-recession budget back towards stability was the closest he could get.

The fact of the matter is, tough decisions will need to be made concerning the deficit, and hopefully the President will stop playing coy and start thinking about what his choices will be.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24899.html#ixzz0LGAv87Vx&C