“I left my wallet in your car.”
FERNDALE, Mich. (AP) — Police in Michigan say a first date went from bad to worse when a Detroit man skipped out on the restaurant bill, then stole his date’s car.
WASHINGTON — Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, speaking for the first time about accusations made in his new book, says he did not mean to suggest that other top Bush administration officials were playing politics with the nation’s security before the 2004 presidential election.“I’m not second-guessing my colleagues,” Ridge said [...]
Ridge says he did not mean to suggest he was pressured to raise the threat level, and he is not accusing anyone of trying to boost Bush in the polls. “I was never pressured,” Ridge said.
(h/t Gateway Pundit)
Comment by happyfeet on 8/31 @ 8:14 am #
I can’t decide if Ridge is a more played-out twat than Orrin Hatch. Back and forth I go.
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 8:28 am #
I wonder if Olbergasm and MadCow will issue corrections over their spleen venting on this.
Comment by BJTexs on 8/31 @ 8:39 am #
Hope springs eternal and futile for you, doesn’t it, JD?
Comment by BJTexs on 8/31 @ 8:55 am #
I’ve got to go with Hatch,’feets. His subterranean level of clueless principles is rapidly descending to the Spectorian level.
After the whole Caroline Kennedy debacle one would think that a “Republican” would have twigged to the whole “fed up with family political legacy picks” mood. Orrin is yet another avuncular get-along el-ee-fant reveling in his pristine non-partisanship.
It’s better to be chums than to advance principles, don’cha know.
Makes me nauseous and furious. At the same time.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 8:59 am #
Let’s don’t get too hung up on Tom Ridge while Obama date-rapes a fellow democracy and near neighbor.
Comment by BJTexs on 8/31 @ 9:09 am #
“Sorry, babe! I musta dropped my wallet in your car. Can I have your keys so I can go and get it?”
“But … you drove here yourself…”
Fade to black
Comment by rrpjr on 8/31 @ 9:22 am #
“Makes me nauseous and furious. At the same time.”
Likewise. Orrin Hatch and his foppish RINO friends eager to bend over for bipartisanship and the outside chance of liberal flattery has been making me ill for too long. Truly an ancien regime of idiots whose idiocy is no longer affordable.
Comment by McGehee on 8/31 @ 10:30 am #
What Ridge wrote in his book would — if he indeed “did not mean to suggest that other top Bush administration officials were playing politics with the nation’s security” — definitely qualify as the sort of thing one ought not to say for fear of the words being twisted by the proglodyte left.
Of course, if he did mean to suggest what he claims he didn’t mean to suggest, then he was just being too damn stupid to be qualified for even such an ill-conceived job as Secretary of Homeland Security.
So, six of one…
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/31 @ 10:37 am #
Why am I not surprised that Ridge was caught doing the publicity shuffle…
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt; maybe he just wanted to get out of going on Olberman and Maddow without having to return any up front money!
Comment by B Moe on 8/31 @ 10:49 am #
Then how did he know the increased threat levels weren’t warranted?
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 10:51 am #
“Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level, and was supported by Rumsfeld,” he writes. “There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, ‘Is this about security or politics?’ ”
Theass,
In case you have been sleeping since 9/11; elections have been some of the terrorists favorite attack opportunities. See Spain, Iraq, and Afghanistan for examples. My guess is you are one of those that takes our success in preventing attacks for granted.
Not to worry though; the CIA has our back, What… oh, nevermind.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 10:51 am #
Mara Liasson yesterday [5:50 - 7:00]:
So, she thinks status quo ante, essentially, is the best political place to be, with the proviso that the Obama administration have yet another opportunity to openly assert that they do not — cannot — trust, “the Bush administration”, even though the career prosecutors who have already looked at the facts and concluded those facts and circumstances don’t warrant prosecution weren’t political appointees themselves. Whatever harm may come to the CIA, to the morale of its people and whatever damage may come to the security of the nation as a consequence of those harms, is, as a “political outcome” worth that price. Assuming Mara’s analysis is on target, I can only say, gee, thanks for that, Obama administration.
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 10:58 am #
If TehAss had a lobotomy, would it become smarter or dummerer?
Comment by B Moe on 8/31 @ 10:59 am #
I think the main lesson we should take from all this is apparently Tom Ridge really is as dumb as he looks.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 11:01 am #
Why, because some Texan might ask him a question he won’t know how to answer?
Comment by BJTexs on 8/31 @ 11:47 am #
One just has to be amused by theas. Even as Ridge is back peddling like a punch drunk prize fighter he still has that overwhelming compulsion to bash the BOOOOOOS.
Are you nostalgic, theas? Do you miss the heady days of pigs blood on the Capital steps and big head puppets and constitution shredding and orange jumpsuited Code Pinkies being water boarded woth Evian and semi professional signs declaring “BUSH LIED! PEOPLE DIED!”? Has the bloom worn off of your rose now that Obama’s !Hope! and !Change! has turned into !Snarling! and !Debt!? Has the light clicked on in your head that everything you ever thought was possible is melting away in an eroding economy, burgeoning unemployment and inconceivable national debt, all of it happening in just a little over six months?
But, I digress. The fact that the FBI didn’t talk to Homeland Security was part and parcel of the inter-agency pissing matches that have been going on since time immemorial (and that probably continue to this day.) Maybe Ashcroft heard something in his briefing and Rumsfeld heard something in his briefing that lead them to believe the threat level should be higher. Election time, as noted above, was an historically high risk time. You also conveniently left out that Ridge adamantly reiterated that there was never any political pressure applied to raise terror alerts for any political purpose.
But, again, I understand your frustration with the way things are going now and your fervent desire to wax poetic about better, cooler moral outrage times when all of the world’s ills could be heaped upon the dummass head of the xtian BOOOOOOSH.
I feel your pain, man!
Comment by geoffb on 8/31 @ 12:15 pm #
And which department is playing the politics. That swings both ways. Experience has shown that one side, the left, has always looked for the political advantage first in any decision. Lives of the little people mean nothing to them unless there is a political gain to be had. Party uber alles.
Comment by rrpjr on 8/31 @ 12:37 pm #
The damage has been done. The CIA has been demoralized. And Obama has demonstrated his assurances of “not looking back” were meaningless and moreover that he has a compunctionless intent to politicize a national security issue, thus breaching the good faith traditions of presidential transition. Here is the nut of the cravenness of it all: if the issue of our conduct in interrogations is so important to our national integrity and the conduct of foreign policy, as the decision to re-investigate this closed issue implies, then nothing short of a presidential clarification and statement of responsibility would be in order. But the president’s sloughing off of this to Holder as he slides off to Martha’s Vineyard says just the opposite: it is purely contemptuous of his office, the CIA, the American people and even his leftist audience.
Comment by BJTexs on 8/31 @ 12:57 pm #
rrpjr: Well said. Especially:
I’d suggest that he’s made it clear his contempt extends to all of intelligence and all of the military. Those institutions are merely inconvenient and messy necessities until he demonstrates to the world that Hope and Change are for all, ushering a post-war utopia.
Comment by happyfeet on 8/31 @ 1:04 pm #
I feel so sorry for the CIA. I bet they feel very disrespected like everyone hates them and thinks they’re fags. Untrustworthy fags what you can’t trust cause of how untrustworthy they are. It must be awful to feel that way.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 1:10 pm #
Jeff posted this a year ago.
Today we have James Carafano writing this.
It can’t be that no-one knew. A majority of Americans evidently welcomed his contempt. And now we’ve all got it in spades.
Comment by Makewi on 8/31 @ 1:16 pm #
Somewhere Nancy P smiles, or would if not for the botulinum toxin.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 1:26 pm #
A week or so ago we saw the Holder decision depicted as a means of distraction from the losing effort Obama has been waging on the universal healthcare front.
The question we ought to have wondered then may better have been, which is which? Why not flip them and see the universal healthcare issue as a distraction from the actual duties and prerogatives of the presidency as assigned by the Constitution? Obama couldn’t even be bothered to write and push his own version of the healthcare overhaul, let alone get it through Congress.
At least the defense of the nation is already recognized as his responsibility. But he gives fuck-all for that duty, preferring instead to characterize medical professionals as greedy opportunistic money grubbers willing to cut you for your wealth and portray himself as just the man to set them straight.
Comment by royf on 8/31 @ 2:14 pm #
Hey Tehass you are the totally clueless twit that thinks John McCain started the USS Forrestal fire by “wet starting” his engine, In-spite of actual Navy film footage that shows his plane being hit by a missile. You are a liar and a political hack, nothing you say has any credibility.
Comment by Makewi on 8/31 @ 2:51 pm #
OT – Darleen, you are going to love this.
Comment by alppuccino on 8/31 @ 3:02 pm #
What color did they change the threat level to in November 2004 there Theas? Take your time.
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 4:04 pm #
TehAss – Do you get your rocks off by coming here and dropping trow ?
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 4:05 pm #
“Why was the US safe from 1993-2001 without using torture or the Patriot act?
Theass,
Remember the USS Cole? The Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania? The Khobar Towers?
Putz
Comment by SBP on 8/31 @ 4:07 pm #
Danger: of course it doesn’t. Just as it doesn’t remember Saddam firing on U.S. planes thousands of times (not an exaggeration).
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 4:11 pm #
“…they were all caught and brought to justice”
Bullshit. Abdul Rahman Yasin fled to Iraq after being mistakenly released by the FBI. He is evidently still at large. Mohammed Khalifa was deported to Jordan, where he was acquitted in court. Further, documents produced at trial alerted Bin Laden to the method by which the US was monitoring his communications, causing him to quit using his satphone and costing the CIA a loss of valuable intelligence.
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 4:13 pm #
SBP,
I think I informed theass that I was piloting one of those planes. Of course he only knows what he wants to know so it was likely a wasted effort.
Comment by SBP on 8/31 @ 4:14 pm #
He has a socialist death panel waiting for you.
No, he doesn’t. Your “health care” fantasy isn’t going to happen, or haven’t you been paying attention? Plastic Jesus is a lame duck with zero political capital seven months into his first (and only) term.
LOL indeed.
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 4:15 pm #
TehAss is performing public asspulls here.
Comment by SBP on 8/31 @ 4:15 pm #
Wait, Danger, so you’re saying that “Saddam never attacked the United States” is a lie? How could that be?
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 4:16 pm #
Address the nonsense you posted earlier about no attacks 1991-2003 dumbass
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 4:18 pm #
SBP
Apparently only leftwing assets count as U.S. attacks to theass.
Comment by rrpjr on 8/31 @ 4:19 pm #
“Bush chose to go on vacation instead.”
Instead of what? Convening an emergency meeting of the top law enforcement and intelligence agencies to consider the likelihood of a combined assault of private jetliners into American landmarks? Yes, let’s blame Bush for not conceiving the inconceivable, and let’s excuse Obama for disconceiving it. Especially when Bush was handicapped by Jamie Gorelick’s braindead pre-Patriot Act baffle chambers.
And are you talking about the same bin Laden who was offered up twice to Bill Clinton?
Comment by Mark A. Flacy on 8/31 @ 4:29 pm #
Well, the 9/11 hijackers all became part of the landscape so it would have been difficult to bring them to justice, now wouldn’t it? Do you think the ultimate masterminds of that particular bombing were all brought to justice?
Comment by SBP on 8/31 @ 4:33 pm #
Ah, Danger, I knew that you’d been over there, but didn’t realize (or maybe remember) that you were involved in that. Thanks for your service.
Comment by Ric Locke on 8/31 @ 4:41 pm #
rrpjr,
You forget; we’re talking to a Leftoid here. The important thing to a Leftoid is compassion — once you learn how to fake that, the Leftoids will let you get away with literally anything.
Y’see, according to Theas the proper course of events for a President is to immediately call a major press conference and express compassion for the poor misguided fellows whose sense of oppression and injustice led them to do such a horrid thing. One (and only one) extra point for mentioning the victims; they don’t matter much. The President should then continue by micromanaging the entire hunt for badguys before continuous television coverage. This demonstrates proper compassion. The fact that the poor bastards in the field, who are trying to figure out whodunnit and how, are continually under the direct eye and direction of the Suits and the teevee cameras, with every move they make instantly communicated to the entire world (most surely including whatever badguys are involved) is utterly irrelevant; paying attention to them isn’t compassionate.
When the 9/11 attacks happened, Bush was at a grade school (in Florida, I believe) reading to the kids from a storybook. Realizing (quite correctly) that there was nothing useful he could do, and that jogging the elbows of the people who had useful things to do wasn’t productive and was probably obstructive, he told his people to get on with it and went back to reading the story to the kids. I’m sure Theas will eventually get around to sneering at that — it isn’t, by his lights, “compassionate” because it doesn’t involve posturing for the teevee cameras. “My Pet Goat”, remember?
Regards,
Ric
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 4:43 pm #
Thanks SBP,
Perhaps Theass would have a different perspective if he was witness to the business end of a (thankfully out of range) surface to air missile.
The view from his Mom and Dad’s basement looks pretty safe no doubt.
Comment by royf on 8/31 @ 4:54 pm #
Tehass is a nothing but a useful idiot he believes all kinds of stupid shit. Never mind that Saddam was in complete violation of the “Cease Fire” which stopped the Gulf War. You know when he was shooting at American and British planes flying to enforce the UN mandated “No Fly Zones”. And hey flying those zones was really cheap I guess cause I never hear teh left complain about those costs, or that their hero bin laden listed those planes in Saudi Arabia as a reason for 9/11.
I’ll bet that is the only UN mandate that Tehass thinks isn’t just kewl. Tehass your a chump you believe nothing but fucking lies and propaganda. But hey its all good now that the Zero Ogabe is Presidebt and all those “illegal and immoral wars” are over, You stupid twat.
Comment by alppuccino on 8/31 @ 4:56 pm #
Asked and unanswered. Theas is a weak sister.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 5:29 pm #
This troll might as well be Robert Gibbs in posting drag, so out of touch is this administration. Were the stupidity he spouts confined to him alone ‘twould be no problem at all. That the political appointees in the Justice Department and the NSC think his way is a disaster aborning.
Comment by SBP on 8/31 @ 5:30 pm #
Tell us Danger since you were there, how many US planes did Saddam manage to shoot down in 11 years?
Got it. So you don’t mind if someone comes over to your house and shoots at you, just as long as they miss.
Good to know.
Comment by royf on 8/31 @ 5:37 pm #
That sure as hell a good reason to spend a trillion bucks
Your a fucking liar, Now there is someone wasting a trillion dollars but its going to fat cat Wall Streeters, Bankers both foreign and domestic and fucking corrupt ass Union bosses. Makes you proud I bet Tehass you know for the “social justice” and all that other clap trap
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 8/31 @ 5:54 pm #
I’m guessing that’s a nervous laugh on theass’s part. Nobody laughs out loud that frequently…by themselves. I love the ubiquitous straw man in there, too. Yes, theass, anyone who thinks that going into Iraq to rid the world of saddam and a potential world threat hates and wants to kill and/or enslave all Muslims. BTW, I was not for escalating in Iraq. But I’m also not a bug eyed, half witted lunatic, either, so I realize that it is simply a difference, admittedly large, in policy. But, you being a hypocrite don’t seem to mind O!bama escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. And all for political reasons, too. You really are a putz.
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 5:55 pm #
TehAss is a lying liar what tells lies lies lies.
Comment by royf on 8/31 @ 5:57 pm #
Yes, thank you Bush for fucking America
Tehass your a fucking liar and two stupid to know how this country functions, You see the dimocrats took control of Congress in 2007 (you do know what Congress is?). And the Constitution (you know what that is right?) gives Congress budgetary power.
This fucking mess is all on the dims and please take the links to those lapdog media sites a deposit them in Tehass. That is all they are worth.
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 5:58 pm #
And I would bet that its IP resolves to a previously banned troll. This performance art kind of crap is so juvenile.
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 5:58 pm #
Well Theass SBP gave the same answer I would have. But since your here and asking dollar value questions.
1. How much money should we spend on Afghanistan before we stop.
2. How much money will they have to pay future interrogators to interview captured terrorists now that we have neutered the CIA?
3. How much money will we throw at GM before we stop.
I could go on but we all get the picture. At least the ones not blinded by the false messiah.
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 6:10 pm #
TehAss has his cranium firmly implanted in its chocolate starfish.
Comment by Danger on 8/31 @ 6:13 pm #
G’night all,
I have to beat the sun from rising or sleep will be a struggle;)
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/31 @ 6:15 pm #
I’ll field that one Teh-ass,
As a veteran of Operation Provide Comfort, and someone who also flew over the no fly zone, I can tell you why Saddam’s boys didn’t shoot down any of our Tomcats, nor any of our other warplanes. We carried radar warning recievers to detect SAM launches and they worked quite well, thank you; though sitting in the saftey of your basement, I’m sure you think such devices terribly unfair…
Also, the Iraqis knew that the Air Force Wild Weasel crews would come along and snuff any battery that shot at any of the patrolling crews!
Your cheap use of strawmen is sickening Theass/Gordo. Everyone who cares to be informed knows that the Republican Guard didn’t generally operate SAM sites, but instead took care of real important stuff; like brutalizing the Iraqi people and the ethnic minorities within Iraq!
The war might eventually cost a trillion dollars, of that you are partially correct. But it didn’t eff the US economy. What it did do was eliminate one of the leading governments that was sympathetic to ANY terrorists bent on attacking the US; as well as provide an effective briar patch where we could kill beaucoup Al-Queda while jeapordizing the minimum number of American lives…
I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer that terrorists fight and die overseas, than here in the US!
Of course, I guess you think that unfair too…
This is one instance where I don’t mind saying that you disgust me Theass/Gordo, and the last time that I’ll address any comment you make…
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/31 @ 6:18 pm #
Stiglitz and Bilmes have a political axe to grind; their estimates are far from accurate or trustworthy…
putz
Comment by newrouter on 8/31 @ 6:24 pm #
ot some vaclav klaus:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4070
Comment by B Moe on 8/31 @ 6:37 pm #
I thought we had seen the last of that imminent threat idiocy. Guess not.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 6:38 pm #
Totally of topic: Twenty one teams passed over Percy Harvin before the Vikes had the good sense to take him. Even allowing that not everyone’s needs were the same, I think a few of those passing teams are going to feel they’ve screwed up by the time the season is over.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 6:38 pm #
off, (oof) sorry
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/31 @ 6:42 pm #
Ravens could have used a good young WR for Flacco to throw to…Wasn’t he one of Urban Meyer’s guys?
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 6:46 pm #
Sdferr – Yes, you are correct.
Bob – Flacco was from Delaware, if memory serves.
Comment by serr8d on 8/31 @ 6:58 pm #
Dateline NBC has some sort of expose on Steve McNair’s murder scheduled for tonight. I suppose I’ll have to break a no-TV rule and watch that.
The thinking is that the Nashville PD blew the case, ruling murder-suicide instead of properly looking behind the grassy knoll.
Comment by Bob Reed on 8/31 @ 7:02 pm #
JD,
Flacco was from Delaware, but I was wondering about Harvin…I’ll just google him and see what it says
Comment by JD on 8/31 @ 7:07 pm #
You are right, I was confused.
Comment by serr8d on 8/31 @ 7:29 pm #
I’ll nominate Sahel Kazemi as the ultimate date from hell. At least to date, for 2009.
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 8:05 pm #
Yes Bob, Percy was a Gator. About whom — further off topic — lemme just say, their schedule looks embarrassingly weak this year. If they can’t run the table, shame on them.
Comment by John Bradley on 8/31 @ 8:09 pm #
Newrouter: it pisses me off to no end that here you’ve got the freakin’ president of the god-forsaken Czech Republic, of all places, saying things that need sayin’… and things no elected (R) critter would dare to say. I don’t even think Sarah’d go that far. Because it’s just so unspeakable…
Comment by sdferr on 8/31 @ 8:19 pm #
“… of all places”?
Klaus is an honest economist who happens to have lived under the thumb of a real live genuine foursquare Communist dictatorship, right along with a goodly number of his fellow countrymen. How on earth could he not say what he’s saying? It’s broken into his bones.
Comment by Mark A. Flacy on 8/31 @ 8:22 pm #
What part of “cease fire” do you find difficult to understand? It wasn’t a “cease shooting down aircraft” agreement.
Child, what the fuck are you talking about? Do you even understand what you type?
Comment by cynn on 8/31 @ 8:49 pm #
I think Ridge is being smashed into a pillow right about now. He needs to shut down.
Comment by cynn on 8/31 @ 8:52 pm #
Any one besides me wonder about this Danger guy? I could be totally wrong.
Comment by rrpjr on 8/31 @ 8:55 pm #
“Radical human freedom.” Yes. Where are the American politicians saying such simple and shocking things? Thank God for Vaclav Klaus. But why in the land of Thomas Paine can’t we find dozens of such men in Washington?
Comment by McGehee on 8/31 @ 8:57 pm #
Wouldn’t that be a shock?
Comment by cynn on 8/31 @ 9:00 pm #
It would actually. A toxic shock.
Comment by Mark A. Flacy on 8/31 @ 10:15 pm #
Sorry, my Kreskin helmet isn’t working today. Wonder what about this Danger guy?
Comment by cranky-d on 8/31 @ 11:07 pm #
danger is legit. all who matter know that.
Comment by Danger on 9/3 @ 7:00 am #
“Any one besides me wonder about this Danger guy?”
Congratulations cynn I believe that you have set a new record in the category of irony here at PW.
Ask Happyfeet about your prize. Last I heard he had watermelon pudding cups.
Comment by JD on 9/3 @ 7:09 am #
Watermelon pudding? Could you be any more racist? Good Allah.
Comment by Danger on 9/3 @ 7:20 am #
A fraud AND a racist.
I am doubly denounced 8^0
Comment by JD on 9/3 @ 7:27 am #
You are going to need to be re-educated, Danger.
Do you ever run across any of the AF208xx’s?
Comment by Danger on 9/3 @ 8:27 am #
JD,
Were you refering to the Cessna Caravans?
We have few versions of the 208 that the Iraqis are using.
The TC-208 is used for training. The RC-208 is an ISR platform and The AC-208 is being fitted to fire Hellfire missiles as an air-to-ground attack/ISR platform.
Comment by JD on 9/3 @ 8:59 am #
Actually, I was thinking of the 208’s, the cryptological linguists. If memory serves, the Army equivaleÑts were 98 Charley or Golf. Always happy to see you comment.
Comment by Danger on 9/3 @ 9:17 am #
JD,
My Air Force MWS is AWACS which employs air-to-air controllers and radar techs but no linguists. However, the RC-135 Rivet Joint has linguists and the building next to ours has Army sigint personnel but I only cross paths with them occasionally.
Pingback by All Atwitter » What, No Second Date? on 9/4 @ 10:19 am #
[...] Protein Wisdom. Posted at 11:52 am by [...]