Obama is on a learning curve right now and we'll have to see how fast he can adapt to the political realities.

I don't see anywhere in your posts an admission that the opposition is determined to defeat him with as much misinformation as is necessary, but that is clearly the case. If the country really doesn't want health care reform, wouldn't the truth suffice??? Instead we have nutjobs like Palin out there talking about death panels and other phenomena that exist only in the right wing's imagination- and not in any proposed legislation.

…
But exhaustive research by the Daily News in 2004 found that Ashcroft’s Justice Department rolled out terrorism announcements frequently to give Bush a boost in the polls against Democrat John Kerry.

Ridge’s first hint that Bush political aides were leveraging fear of terror attacks — an issue where Bush polled well — came in May 2004.

Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller held a press conference to warn about American-Al Qaeda Adam Gadahn and other suspects.

A top source said the Bush White House orchestrated the event. The red-faced FBI chief would appear with Ashcroft only once more.

But even Ashcroft had limits. He rebuffed a close aide’s request to make announcements of indictments and “be-on-the-lookouts” for terror suspects in political battleground states, a top Justice source told The News.

Btw, this is not the first time Ridge has asserted the terror level increases were bull.

****
Gotta say, I love how DLS and Daveinboca think this is some sort of media conspiracy when it's all about Tom Ridge trying to sell his book. Is Tom Ridge actually one of those liberal media elites?

This seems to be another one of those national pants-shi**ing moments Nick Gillespie wrote about last year.

Bush-and-Cheney-bashing is normally now just fringist idiot stuff, but this is handy as it provides both a distraction from the Dems' current problems (they rushed too much, neglected and evaded too much, and reached too far, and have offended the mainstream and even lefties, they have been so bad this time, with health care) and a handy object to which to direct venom and therewith impugn the mainstream that isn't loyally [pant-pant-pant, WOOF!], robotically, and stupidly accepting anything and everything with “Dem” and currently, “health care” being “offered” to us by Washington (to be passed over our many objections).

In this (naturally, hyped from the start; we don't know what happened and it's already close to 100% assured to be much less what and than the liberal media and lefties elsewhere are saying it is) the Demmies (and their campaign auxiliaries) have both a red herring (ignore health care and the problems; lookie here, people!) and (given the hype and the mis-extending of the issue) a straw man (or the Dems might insist were they honest, straw _person_) that can be extended to mischaracterize yet again the US mainstream as well as the few real righties, and those on the Left who are straying from the play book.

Paul O'Neill's account (as told to Ron Suskind) of the Bush administration is unflattering, as I just wrote.

http://thepriceofloyalty.ronsuskind.com/

I disagree, K, but I'll add that there is a small possibility that he may be like Paul O'Neill (if you recall Mr. O'Neill's account, it was unflattering about the Bush administration) or also, actually, like John Ashcroft (who was reported to have been ill in the hospital when people approached him to coerce him into signing his approval for questionable conduct or even torture, when he was not the person actually in charge of the Justice Department at the time, but whose signature was sought for clout — i.e., for political purposes).

I say “small” not because the analogies to O'Neill or to Ashcroft are poor (they are not; I say they are good and better than an analogy to Powell) but because the accusations of political misuse of government power here remain “small” and hyped and speculated or often imagined by lefties currently.

The Democrats have misused government before to affect elections (and have been more notorious for this, as they have for other misconduct for which the Dems are the party famous for it). Releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve prior to the 2000 elections to try to win votes for an ailing Gore was and remains the worst thing so far (other than the Dems' effort to steal the White House in 2000 after they lost it).

Other people in the meeting Tom Ridge attended say there was no political manipulation of the terrorism alerts and threat level.

Discussion of raising the alert level happened after the bin Laden tape. (Other events also happened that another poster has already listed.)

How hypocritical for the liberal media and others to attack the Bush administraion when the Dems' health care effort and other efforts typically involve fear and dishonest attempts to use fear (an emotion) to sway the swayable (solid Dem and Dem-leaning) voters. Dishonest fear-mongering (alarmism and even outright catastrophism, so disgusting) is routine with environmental extremist “global warming” or “climate change” politics (including the related politicized science) with overwhelming spreading of fear and the _true_, by the Left, Assault on Reason.

A variation of that approach has been used all this year to scare the susceptible to rationalize and justify the immature, unintelligent, frantic rushing to approve all kinds of hurriedly written, poor-quality legislation.

And we see this with health care now.

How convenient to find a very-hyped opportunity to project the lefties' truly identified behavior on others, which by association is another way to mischaracterize and slander the opposition to the current health care silliness — to mischaracterize and slander the mainstream, more than ever this year so far.

There may be something to this, but there may not really be — so far, it looks enormously hyped and speculated or imagined, largely.

I don't believe that Bush or Cheney will ever see the inside of a federal pen— or Rove for that matter-no matter how richly they deserve it. They have too many friends in powerful places, and Obama has no desire to inflame partisanship during his administration. Investigating and prosecuting Bushco would do just that.

What Ridge's book does is validate another theory of the “loony left”-that the Bush regime used 9/11 in a crass way to hold onto power. Ridge is like another Colin Powell- a solid moderate Republican who was used by Bush and Cheney in their cynical agenda.

I believe that if you investigate you would find that a lot of the “evidence” that took us into Iraq were forgeries ordered by Tenet at Cheney's request. We already know that the document that stated that Niger was supplying uranium to Saddam was a forgery. Cheney is the only one who has the motive to produce those kind of documents, and he and his minions plotted against Joe Wilson and his wife after Wilson spoke out.

I knew what was going on in the hours leading up to the election of 2004. It was so freaking obvious, you had to be an idiot to miss it.

On the first posting on my blog on June 2, 2006, I wrote the following:

“PREDICTION: George W. Bush will be remembered in history, primarily, as the first (pray last) former chief executive to go to federal prison. Sound crazy? Stay tuned.:

I stand by those words.

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

All politicians are crooks, I just want MY kind of crook back in charge.

Should have been called “Bush Approval Ratings Alert”… when the GOP thought Bush was in danger of losing public support they'd change the “terror alert” level to yellow or red…. When in fact it was the level of Bush's (un)popularity.

No wonder it was never green under Bush.

What a trashing this one-termer is getting, but the MSM is trying to avoid noticing King Korng in the parlor.