perfidy

Could it be that the MAGIC COLOR-ALERT TERROR WARNING RAINBOW SYSTEM is a-- no!-- political tool? This person sure thinks so.

I agree. I simply don't understand what is going on. This morning, watching the news with Goodwife Two-Cents, I sat through a featurette on the Saudi bombings that concluded with a note that "further attacks are expected imminently, possibly within the United States. The terror alert system is currently at yellow."

Call me nuts, but if Al Qaeda has just pulled off multiple successful attacks against westerners, doesn't that rate some renewed vigilance? After all, we raised the alert level to Tangerine when we libervaded Iraq, and Iraq isn't exactly sending terrorists out in waves against us. (Disagree? PROVE IT.) So why are we at Yellow, and why has Tom Ridge not yet gone on TV with that oddly cardboard avuncularness he's got and reminded us: a) we are winning the war; b) but buy duct tape anyway just in case; and c) look out for strangers?

Well, if the Terror Alert Rainbow isn't for alerting us about terror, what the hey is it for?

I can see a possible future where the President raises and lowers the Terror Alert every time he needs a campaign boost. Naw.... who would be that cynical?

nota bene: Even if Ridge is on the TV right now, comforting the nation even as I write this, I still don't take it back. I stand by my paranoid rantings, goldurnit!