Ridge has tough job, and politics is a part of it
This is, after all, the same administration that suppressed a report from its own Department of Agriculture, which found a link between potentially dangerous airborne bacteria and animal waste at large farms. The same one that edited a warning about global warming out of a report from the Environmental Protection Agency. The same one that rewrote a Health Department study because it documented racial bias among healthcare providers. The same one that axed a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web page that said education about condom use does not lead to increased sexual activity. The same one that killed a National Cancer Institute statement that abortion does not increase a woman's chance of getting breast cancer. And it is, I'm sure, just happy coincidence that this wholesale rewriting of fact pleases precisely the sort of folks -- antiabortion activists, big business, religious fundamentalists -- who are most likely to donate to and vote for the president.
- Leonard Pitts, Jr.
No one could reasonably argue against the reality that Tom Ridge has a thankless job. Being the czar of Homeland Security means ruling a shadowy empire, one that you pray never has to spring into action, and yet one that must be expected to do just that at a moment's notice. Providing security without infringing on personal liberties, ensuring safety without inconvenincing anyone- no, we merely demand and expect the impossible.
Doing his job well only means that eventually people will begin to question if he is even doing his job at all. One terrorist attack will, however, mean that Ridge's performance, or lack of same, will be parsed and analyzed to the nth degree. Fair? Not hardly, but such is the nature of the beast.
No, Ridge's job is a difficult, and some would say well-nigh impossible job. By all indications, he approaches his duties with the gravitas his office deserves. Why, then, has he condoned the politicizing of the war on terror? As if things weren't difficult enough as it is, the Bush Adminstration has so highly politicized everything about their anti-terror efforts that no move can be made without it being parsed and dissected for any shred of political significance.
Such is the bed that Ridge has been forced to sleep in by the Bush Administration. Of course, Ridge's lack of candor, particularly as it relates to the terrorism alert system hasn't done him any favors. Remember, there's an election on, so if you can keep us scared, there's a good chance that Americans won't want to change generals in mid-war.
[T]he homeland security secretary strikes me as a man doing the best he can with a thankless job. Complain all you want about his incessant warnings of attacks that never come. Let it be discovered in the wake of some future assault that Ridge sat on information, however vague, that might have prevented it. They will string him up in front of the Capitol and none of the people calling him an alarmist will mutter a word in his defense.
So I tend to sympathize with the man when he's forced to fend off critics who question the timing or necessity of his terrorism warnings. However, Ridge said something last week that I can't allow to pass without challenge.
You will recall that the nation's terrorism alert level was recently raised, largely because of information that was revealed to be several years old. This led some critics to suggest Ridge acted less from the need to respond to a terrorist threat than from the need to snatch the spotlight from John Kerry.
Ridge's reply?
''We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security,'' the secretary said.
Well, now.
It would be nice to believe the department is a politics-free zone. But it has become increasingly obvious that no such thing exists in the Bush White House. I feel constrained to remind Ridge that he serves an administration in which credibility is not exactly at a surplus. More to the point, an administration that has never been reticent about subordinating truth to politics.
The disastrous war in Iraq, to which President Bush rushed based upon shaky intelligence and a true believer's zeal, is but the most obvious example. The president's brazen dismissal of his own rationale for that war is but the latest.
If you sleep with dogs, eventually you're going to get fleas. Ridge may believe in his heart that his job is not about politics, but NOTHING in the Bush Administration is devoid of political machination- especially the war on terror.
The sooner Ridge admits this reality to himself and to us, the sooner he can go back to rebuilding his shredded credibility. Lord knows he's got a lot of work to do....
