All us filthy hippies:

Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: 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; found his urgings to
block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency
blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; andwas
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.

Because that’s what we were, back in 2004, we Kerry-voting Bush-doubting hippies who couldn’t do anything right. We just wanted to undermine the president and so we’d suggest monstrous things, like maybe we weren’t in danger of being attacked on the eve of the election, like maybe Bush was quite often talking out his ass when it came to these “terror alerts” and having himself a little funny at the expense of the whole world. Who could even think such a thing? Surely our sick imaginations had their limits.

Apparently my sick imagination did have its limit because while I personally imagined Bush would manipulate the terror alert system for his own political gain, I never imagined him doing it obviously enough to piss off Tom Ridge. You’ll notice the manipulation and incompetence had to be blatant to get Ridge riled up. It had to be, you know, not just upping the alert level on the basis of some oldsauce intel from three years ago, it had to be not just fucking up the workdays of like five thousand flight attendants and those poor TSA fuckers and grinding the airports down to a slow trickle, it had to be doing it right before an election.

So fuck Ridge in his ear. It was worth resigning over but not worth saying anything about until now, when he could make a buck off it selling books? Releasing that book on Sept. 1? Why not Sept. 11? Why not go all the way in? What an asshole. He can join a long line of former Bush administration whores at the sink allout damned spot. I mean, you tell us this NOW? Instead of in 2004, when it could have fucking helped? When it was actually happening? Four years more of that chewy little jerk, you gave us, and don’t tell me this wouldn’t have turned the tide, it was a close election, anything could have turned it, four years in which countless people died and oh, yeah, a whole fucking city drowned, and you could have stopped it?

And you come to us now?Now, when we’rethis? When we’re this shell-shocked, retina-burned national kicked puppy jumping a mile every time the phone rings? When we’re unable to open our mouths on TV without eating each other alive? When we can’t have a civil debate about anything because a third of us are too cowardly and a third are too stupid and a third are exhausted and just want some ice cream and a nap? You wait until we’re this to tell us what you have to tell?

For what possible purpose? To be absolved? Not a chance, you son of a bitch. Nobody who stood around while this crap happened and waited five years to speak up gets to say shit that isn’t an apology. I don’t care how horrifying Tom Ridge found it all at the time. He kept his mouth shut and he stayed indoors and yeah, maybe he quit, but he sure as hell didn’t do it fast enough. I have zero respect. They called us traitors, and we were right, and he and many many others knew it, and didn’t say a damn thing till now, when it’s just too late for it to do any good.

Schmuck.

A.