Even after admitting that Tom Ridge's revelations that he felt the terrorist threat level was being used for political purposes was pretty stunning, Matthews and his guests go on to just diminish this as politics as usual and some kind of running joke they were all in on. Too bad the media didn't treat it as such when it was occurring instead of doing their part to help scare the crap out of gullible Americans who didn't see right through this stuff. And this is not politics as usual. It's criminal. But our media treats the criminal as politics as usual, so sadly their reaction isn't surprising.