Tom Ridge wants to have it both ways. He sat on his hands then to save his job and now he wants to get paid again. Remember, he could have made a difference. Now he describes the terror alerts he propagated as "political" when he has a book to sell, but it's not sitting well with a lot of us, especially when he already knew that in 2004.

First, the timing of terror alerts raises questions that aren’t adequately answered.

If there’s no intent to benefit the president in a re-election year, Ridge should say more than “we don’t play politics” at the Department of Homeland Security.

Especially after doing a virtual campaign ad by announcing “new” threats just after the Democratic convention and praising “the president’s leadership in the war against terror.”

And it wasn’t said off the cuff or in answer to a question. It was said in prepared remarks.

It makes Ridge more salesman than guardian, more political servant than public servant.

Same with failing to divulge the full context of information on potential terror sites later revealed as three to four years old.

How does pushing the president while holding back the truth give anyone confidence “we don’t play politics”?

Maybe he’s told what to say, when and how, and maybe that’s why he wants out. A source close to Ridge tells me the relationship between Ridge and the White House “isn’t what it used to be.” Still, it’s his gig.

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August 20, 2009 MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show

MADDOW: Today, Tom Ridge says he stands by that statement about his own department. But in his new book, Mr. Ridge reveals his own suspicions that the Bush administration did try to use the threat of terror attacks for the political gain of the president and his party.

Of the days immediately prior to the 2004 election when polls showed Bush and Kerry in a virtual dead heat and when a new tape from Bin Laden surfaced, Ridge recalls, quote, "Attorney General Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level and was supported by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, is this about security or politics? Post-election analysis demonstrated a significant increase in the president`s approval rating in the days after the raising of the threat level."

Tom Ridge is scheduled to join us on this show on September 1st. I very much look forward to the opportunity to interview him. Until then, his word, his written word taken in context from a pre-released copy of his new book stands as a powerful and credible suggestion that what Keith Olbermann and many others suspected at the time back in 2004 was indeed true.

The Bush administration did manipulate the public`s fear of terrorism quite literally in a day-to-day way in order to stay in power.

Joining us now is Ret. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. He was chief-of-staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. Col. Wilkerson, thank you very much for joining us tonight.

RET. COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON, UNITED STATES ARMY: Thank you for having me, Rachel.

MADDOW: What is your reaction to Tom Ridge`s accusations made in this book? Was the color-coded threat level increased for political reasons?

WILKERSON: The governor has a position from which, if he`s saying that, I have to give his saying it some respect and some credibility.

I also know from my position in the administration having witnessed Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman and others doing what they did as political strategists that much was driven by political interests, domestic political interests, not international relations and national security or other interests, and that oftentimes, we did develop policy that was focused toward domestic issues, political issues, that is, they would give the Republicans an edge when, in fact, that position might contradict national security interests.

So, you know, I don`t know whether the governor is right in what he`s saying or not, but I do know that there is an environment in which what he`s saying could have been true. And let me just say one other thing, this is really amazing to me as a Republican, watching this happen.

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From AC360, Fran Townsend defends the Bush Whitehouse against the latest allegations made by Tom Ridge, that he felt the administration was using the Department of Homeland Security to scare the bejesus out of everyone for political gain. Of course Townsend feigns innocence and says they'd never do that. Her excuses here sound a whole lot more to me like Alberto's "I can't recall" testimony on the Attorney General scandal than any type of straight answers.

She weighs her words very carefully to make sure she never actually answers Coopers's questions, or when she does, she throws Ridge under the bus. We never wanted to pressure him to repeat our taking points...he asked for them...lol. Yeah, right. I give Cooper a good grade for asking the right questions here, and a bad one for not doing any kind of follow up. Heaven forbid anyone on CNN is going to push a Bushie even when they know full well they're lying to their face. That wouldn't be polite, would it?

Transcript below the fold.

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[Shawn Stuart, Iraq War veteran, at a 2006 neo-Nazi rally in Olympia, WA.]

Remember how the right-wingers screamed and yelled about that Homeland Security bulletin which indicated that white supremacists might be recruiting Iraq war veterans or pushing recruitment within military ranks?

Remember how the ensuing hissy fit ended with Janet Napolitano apologizing (for a report that originated in the Bush administration)? Notice how even now, after the report has been proven prescient in its warning about "lone wolf" domestic terrorists, guys like Joe Scarborough are still trying to claim that it "insulted our veterans"?

Well, Matt Kennard at Salon has an eye-opening report that should permanently shut up the right-wing whining, because it demonstrates clearly the broad nature of the problem -- namely, not only are veterans being actively recruited, but neo-Nazis and other radicals are actively joining up to fight -- and the military is turning a blind eye to it:

Since the launch of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has struggled to recruit and reenlist troops. As the conflicts have dragged on, the military has loosened regulations, issuing "moral waivers" in many cases, allowing even those with criminal records to join up. Veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder have been ordered back to the Middle East for second and third tours of duty.

The lax regulations have also opened the military's doors to neo-Nazis, white supremacists and gang members — with drastic consequences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the military, and others have been linked to recruitment efforts for the white right. A recent Department of Homeland Security report, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," stated: "The willingness of a small percentage of military personnel to join extremist groups during the 1990s because they were disgruntled, disillusioned, or suffering from the psychological effects of war is being replicated today." Many white supremacists join the Army to secure training for, as they see it, a future domestic race war. Others claim to be shooting Iraqis not to pursue the military's strategic goals but because killing "hajjis" is their duty as white militants.

Soldiers' associations with extremist groups, and their racist actions, contravene a host of military statutes instituted in the past three decades. But during the "war on terror," U.S. armed forces have turned a blind eye on their own regulations. A 2005 Department of Defense report states, "Effectively, the military has a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt … they are likely to be able to complete their contracts."

Carter F. Smith is a former military investigator who worked with the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command from 2004 to 2006, when he helped to root out gang violence in troops. "When you need more soldiers, you lower the standards, whether you say so or not," he says. "The increase in gangs and extremists is an indicator of this." Military investigators may be concerned about white supremacists, he says. "But they have a war to fight, and they don't have incentive to slow down."

Tom Metzger is the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and current leader of the White Aryan Resistance. He tells me the military has never been more tolerant of racial extremists. "Now they are letting everybody in," he says.

Now, much of this, in fact, we have already reported at C&L. Indeed, this is not a new problem, as Kennard makes clear:

Following an investigation of white supremacist groups, a 2008 FBI report declared: "Military experience — ranging from failure at basic training to success in special operations forces — is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement." In white supremacist incidents from 2001 to 2008, the FBI identified 203 veterans. Most of them were associated with the National Alliance and the National Socialist Movement, which promote anti-Semitism and the overthrow of the U.S. government, and assorted skinhead groups.

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Joe Conason warned me that people were going to have a hard time saying the title of my book. I guess he was right -- Don Lemon had a rough time of it last night when he hosted me and Fran Townsend, a former Bush administration Homeland Security official, on CNN Newsroom.

The discussion did give me a chance to talk about that Homeland Security bulletin and how accurate it was. I did try to see if Townsend could shed some light on when it was commissioned, but we ran out of time.

In any event, let me know how I did.

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[Note: I confirmed earlier today that my interview with Anderson Cooper regarding "lone wolf" violence will air on AC360 tonight, so be sure to catch it on CNN.]

When that Homeland Security bulletin on right-wing extremism was issued two months, C&L was among the first to point out the report's complete factual accuracy. In retrospect, there are some methodological issues with the bulletin, which Leonard Zeskind ably limns; and the report's political framing unfortunately left it open to political attack.

Yet, as we've seen this week, it was clearly prescient in warning about the dangers posed by lone wolves and small-cell terrorists. Shepard Smith notwithstanding, everyone at Fox has been pushing hard to convince the public once again the DHS report was wrong. Next: Rupert Murdoch is the King of the Moon.

Among them: Neil Cavuto yesterday on his daily Fox News program. He invited a Gulf War vet named Matthew Burden on to talk about how wrong the report was. This produced some real howlers.

Burden: Well, first of all, this report was poorly written, and it was a completely unprovoked attack on our veterans.

Well, regardless of its literary qualities, the report in fact was not only perfectly accurate -- it was in fact issued largely in response to the shooting of three police officers in by a right-wing extremist Pittsburgh the week prior. Moreover, the warning raised regarding veterans was strictly about the effort by right-wing extremist groups, particularly neo-Nazi organizations, to recruit returning veterans -- a fact that had already been long established.

Finally, it must be pointed out that the DHS report in fact accurately predicted that the most significant domestic-terrorism threat Americans faced was going to come from "lone wolf" and small-cell terrorists motivated by right-wing extremism. Not that Neil or his guest ever bother to discuss this point.

Cavuto: I always wonder if -- the prior administration had said the exact same thing, you know, how differently that might have been treated.

Good question, Neil -- because, as Catherine Herridge and Shepard Smith reported on Fox they did say "the exact same thing" -- this report was in fact commissioned by the Bush administration.

So we wonder, indeed, how this would have been reported if any of the rest of Greater Wingnuttia had bothered to report that fact as well?

Most of all, Cavuto wants to emphasize the portion of the report that discussed veterans -- but ignores the fact that most right-wingers were outraged not just over that portion, but over what they saw as conflation of right-wing extremists with their own mainstream conservatism. Of course, what they mostly were intent on doing was futilely scrubbing to get that nasty right-wing extremist stain out.

Fortunately, all you had to do was switch the channel to MSNBC to get a reasonable and intelligent discussion of the DHS memo between Mark Potok of the SPLC and Keith Olbermann:

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Here's a collection of posts by angry, right wing conservatives who were freaking out when the DHS report was released. Obviously our soldiers aren't the focus of the report, but the right wing kooks needed to find something to attack it with because the report perfectly highlighted the issue at hand. And as we've seen so far, right-wing violence is up dramatically since President Obama was elected.

Limbaugh: Bring me the head of Janet Napolitano!

Pat Robertson urges his callers to crash Homeland Security hotline

Hannity: It's an insult to suggest that veterans are bias-crime victims

Conservatives are trying to whitewash far-right terrorists out of our memories There was Bill Bennett, that right-wing moral icon, telling John King's "State of the Union" panel yesterday on CNN that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's clear explanation wasn't good enough.

Is the DHS watching returning veterans? Only when they join far-right hate groups -- O'Reilly says the report was "unnecessary," cooked up by a bevy of myopic "far left" liberals freshly ensconced in their DHS offices.

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Right-wingers have a problem admitting that there's such a thing as right-wing terrorism. We saw it recently with that prescient Homeland Security bulletin that they all claimed smeared them. And now we're seeing it again with the assassination of Dr. George Tiller.

Sarah Palin issued a statement today about the assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas that was a classic Double Fail:

I feel sorrow for the Tiller family. I respect the sanctity of life and the tragedy that took place today in Kansas clearly violates respect for life. This murder also damages the positive message of life, for the unborn, and for those living. Ask yourself, 'What will those who have not yet decided personally where they stand on this issue take away from today's event in Kansas?'

Regardless of my strong objection to Dr. Tiller's abortion practices, violence is never an answer in advancing the pro-life message.

Palin, like most movement conservatives, is worried most of all about the possible effects this murder will have on the anti-abortion movement and her own politics.

More to the point, she refuses to acknowledge -- just as she did in the campaign last year, in the above interview with John McCain -- that abortion-clinic violence is in fact domestic terrorism.

She's certainly not alone in that regard. Michelle Malkin openly mocked the very idea of it today, as did others.

But this is not a new problem. Back in 2003, then-Rep. Porter Goss-- prior to his stint as CIA director -- made similar claims:

"The trouble is, 'terrorism' is a very broad word, and it lends itself to a lot of mischief for people who would abuse common sense," Goss said. He then cited bombings of abortion clinics. "To me, that's not the kind of terrorism I'm talking about."

But in 2004, anti-abortion militants in the Army of God -- the violently anti-abortion organization with which Scott Roeder, Tiller's assassin, was associated at one time -- openly celebrated their status as terrorists:

Pleading, politics and pandering have done precious little to stop the holocaust against the innocent. But the Christian terrorist is not so inadequate. Dead abortionists don't kill babies, and a fire-bombed death camp can no longer facilitate the holocaust against them.

As cream rises to the top, so the Christian terrorist rises above the huddled masses of churchgoers and the many voices that denounce their violent attempts to defend the innocent from their murderous assailants.

The people committing these acts see themselves as terrorists and embrace the notion. Unfortunately, their fellow right-wingers who don't condone or share their behavioral extremism -- but do share their belief that abortion is murder and that Dr. Tiller was a "mass murderer" -- are much too busy covering up that fact. And their friends in the media are willing to let them get away with it.

Bernie with his BFF.

Remember Bernie Kerik, that swaggering sack of testosterone? Looks like he's in real trouble now:

NEW YORK - Former New York City police Commissioner Bernard Kerik has been indicted on charges of making false statements to White House officials vetting him for the position of Department of Homeland Security secretary.

The indictment was handed up Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C. It means Kerik will face trials in New York and Washington.

Similar false-statement charges were brought as part of a larger case in New York but were dismissed and transferred to Washington, where prosecutors say the crimes occurred.

The indictment alleges Kerik falsely denied that as a public official he had any financial dealings with contractors seeking to do business with the city. Prosecutors say the contractors spent more than $255,000 renovating Kerik's apartment.

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The American Right is never happy unless it has someone it collectively decides will be the Voodoo Doll of the Moment -- a single liberal figure upon whom it can focus all its energies at destroying. And it's obvious that Janet Napolitano is the going to be the first Obama administration official they go after.

You can tell, because already they are starting to lie, distort, and generally smear her any way they can; no hypocrisy is too gross to indulge along the way. No matter that the right-wing extremism report at the heart of the controversy is in fact accurate in every detail.

Yesterday ex-Sen. Rick Santorum was on Greta Van Susteren's show doing the lying, smearing, and hypocrisy schtick for the sake of running down Napolitano:

Santorum: Well, it's not a good thing for this administration to have a Secretary of Homeland Security, who has over 40,000 veterans working in that department out there attacking veterans as potential homeland security problems.

This is flatly false: the report does not smear veterans, but appropriately raises a red flag over the indisputable fact that right-wing extremists intend to recruit veterans.

On it went:

Van Susteren: She didn't actually write the report. She didn't read it before it went out, maybe.

Santorum: It's her department -- the people that she hired. I mean, these are people that she hired, that the Obama administration hired to write this. This isn't holdovers from the Bush administration that wrote this. These are her folks!

This is simply a baldfaced falsehood. These reports were in fact commissioned under the Bush adminstration, as was reported last week by Fox's Shepard Smith and Catherine Herridge:

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Anyone notice how right-wing behavior toward President Obama so far is mimicking, structurally speaking, their behavior toward President Clinton in the 1990s: encourage anti-government hysteria, freak out about incipient totalitarianism, accuse him of destroying the country and making it weaker, and then constantly attack his appointees and demand their firing? What's next, an investigation of his investments?

Does it surprise anyone, then, that the first object of Republicans' ire -- the first Cabinet appointment whose resignation they're demanding -- would be a woman named Janet?

Greta Van Susteren and Byron York last night on Fox were fairly representative (check out the Limbaugh rant at the beginning), though the fire-Napolitano talk has been bubbling up everywhere. As Amanda Terkel notes this morning, John McCain even went so far as to falsely claim that the person responsible for the report had been fired.

Still, as York says, the cold reality is that Napolitano is on perfectly solid ground and there is no likelihood, imminent or otherwise, that she'll be forced out. But the reason for that is that not only was what the report said in fact perfectly accurate, she only bears glancing responsibility for it: It had, after all, been commissioned by the Bush administration and authored by Bush administration hirees.

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[H/t to Gordon Skene at Newstalgia for the archival footage]

Yesterday was one of those anniversaries many of us try to put out of our minds. Conservatives these days seem to be trying especially hard.

But for some of us, those memories still burn:

It was 14 years ago when Doris Battle's parents were killed in the Oklahoma City bombing, just two of the 168 people who died during the nation's worst domestic terrorist attack.

Battle was among 400 people who gathered Sunday to observe the 14th anniversary of the bombing of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an attack that also injured hundreds of people. The explosion of a truck loaded with 4,000 pounds (1,800 kilograms) of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil tore the face off the building and caused millions of dollars in damage to other downtown structures.

"I can't go home and see him anymore," Battle said of her father, Calvin Battle, who died with her mother Peola when the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed on April 19, 1995. And Battle said the passage of time has not diminished the loss she still feels.

And yet, erasing the very memory of the worst act of homegrown terrorism ever committed on American soil -- and until 9/11, the worst such act ever -- seems to be what movement conservatives have been doing all week.

Ever since word emerged earlier this week about the Department of Homeland Security's internal-assessment bulletin about domestic terrorism, the mainstream right has been wallowing in paranoia about the possibility the report might have meant them.

Moreover, no amount of rebuttal -- even from the DHS secretary herself -- is good enough for them.

Yet if you read the report, it couldn't be clearer that it is concerned almost exclusively with far-right extremists: neo-Nazis, skinheads, anti-abortion bombers, and their assorted fellow travelers. What the teeth-gnashing from the right suggests is that they recognize themselves, and their influence, all too readily in the thugs and terrorists who take their beliefs and twist them into something violent.

Guilty conscience, much?

Prime example: There was Bill Bennett, that right-wing moral icon, telling John King's "State of the Union" panel yesterday on CNN that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano's clear explanation wasn't good enough.

It's bad enough that he can't even get his facts straight. What's especially noteworthy is the way he airbrushes out the very real existence of actual domestic right-wing terrorist groups:

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KING: Bill, she says they have intelligence and active investigations of this possibility. Do you take her at her word?

BENNETT: She wouldn't give you one bit of evidence. You asked her for the names of any groups, any organizations. You pressed her on it -- nothing.

When they put out a report on certain left-wing organizations back in January, there were some specifics. There are no specifics here, except they target veterans. They say look out for veterans being recruited and look out for people who are opposed to abortion and immigration.

Of course, as we explained recently:

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Trying to respond to the insane eruption of self-revealing wingnuttery over that Department of Homeland Security bulletin outlining the coming wave of right-wing domestic terrorism, Janet Napolitano went on CNN this morning to talk it over with John King on "State of the Union":

NAPOLITANO: Here is the important point. The report is not saying that veterans are extremists. Far from it. What it is saying is returning veterans are targets of right-wing extremist groups that are trying to recruit those to commit violent acts within the country. We want to do all we can to prevent that.

And again, I regret that in the politicization of everything that happens in Washington, D.C., some people took offense, but when you read the report, what it was saying -- what it was saying is, look, we have a threat of terrorism within our own shores, and one of the groups being targeted to see if they will be aligned with that are some of our veterans. Let's make sure we prevent that.

KING: Do you regret the politicization, or do you regret the choice of words by your department? Could it have been written better, to maybe reduce the politicization?

NAPOLITANO: In retrospect, anything could have been written differently to prevent politicization, but I think any fair reading of the report says this is very consistent with other reports that have been issued before, they were issued before Obama was president, they're being issued now. They're meant to give people what is called situational awareness, and they're certainly not intended to give offense, far from it.

This confirms our earlier reportage, as well as our more thorough analysis of the bulletin and the response to it.

Finally, and most on the tip of wingnut tongues, is the claim that the report "singles out" all returning veterans as potential recruits for right-wing extremists. In reality, the report only singles out returning veterans who become active in violent hate groups.

Here's the actual language of the report:

U//FOUO) Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.

This is, in fact, precisely accurate -- and as we pointed out from the get-go, this is the view not merely of DHS, but of the FBI. A July 2008 assessment of the situation by the FBI (titled White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel Since 9/11) found that the numbers of identifiable neo-Nazis within the ranks was quite small (only a little over 200), but warned:

Military experience—ranging from failure at basic training to success in special operations forces—is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement. FBI reporting indicates extremist leaders have historically favored recruiting active and former military personnel for their knowledge of firearms, explosives, and tactical skills and their access to weapons and intelligence in preparation for an anticipated war against the federal government, Jews, and people of color.

... The prestige which the extremist movement bestows upon members with military experience grants them the potential for influence beyond their numbers. Most extremist groups have some members with military experience, and those with military experience often hold positions of authority within the groups to which they belong.

... It's important to understand how FBI investigations into these kinds of activities take place: The FBI is constrained by DOJ guidelines that do not allow them to investigate organizations merely because of incendiary rhetoric or politically worrisome beliefs. They only open investigations into the activities of members of such groups when there is evidence of actual criminal activity.

And it's at that time that the presence of an extremist with a military background becomes not merely relevant, but potentially important.

March 12, 2009 CNN

RawStory:

"Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) has been chosen to serve as secretary of the vast and troubled Department of Homeland Security for President-elect Obama," Politico's Mike Allen reported late Wednesday night. "Napolitano is a border governor who will now be responsible for immigration policy and border security, which are part of Homeland Security's myriad functions."

Napolitano has been a big Obama booster through out his campaign. Here she is, introducing Obama in September: