Ridge's "Bombshell"

Tom Ridge's book is due out in early September and like most books about politics these days it will be a 'tell-all', or at least a 'tell-some'. Here's the grabber headline:

He almost considered resigning after being pressured to raise the terrorist threat level for political reasons

So, like John Ashcroft's deputy he almost resigned, but didn't. And he was evidently pressured by some unnamed person to raise the alert levels, but did not. This will both please and irk the left because they claim he indeed did raise them.

Or maybe he just felt pressured. The other headline was this:

Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was "blindsided" by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him

How would be know whether it was prudent to not raise the levels if they were withholding top level info from him? Maybe the book will name names and kick butt in that department, explaining the specific person who may have said something like "raise the level to orange so George can win, Tom", etc. So we'll see.

The story is coming from "Washington Whispers" at US News quoting Ridge's publisher Thomas Dunne about a book called "The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege...and How We Can Be Safe Again", the stated purpose of which is to raise America's awareness again. That doesn't necessarily sound like a book designed solely to cream the administration.

Matter of fact, with a title like that who can blame the publisher for picking the juciest snippet possible? Bush defenders will be in full retreat here, but keep in mind this same kind of advance publicity was also used with several other insider books about the Bush administration, most recently with Scott McClennan and Alan Greenspan.

Politically speaking, Ridge may be running for office again. If he is there are some housecleaning chores he'll have to take care of eventually, such as jettisoning his Bushitler bonafides, one of which was being in charge of the terror alerts. Of course everyone has to distance themselves from Katrina. Even Michael Brown tried to do that. So, yawn.

MORE 8/20/09

The Bush folks have now weighed in, at least two of them. Correction three if we can count McClellan, who said Ridge will have to back up the claim with facts or the Bush folks will 'pounce'. Yeah, he might know a bit about that.