There’s a reason Tom Ridge was not effective as he could have been as our nation’s Homeland Security chief. He was left out of key meetings. He didn’t always get necessary info from the FBI. In his new book, he suggests that the Bush administration may have played politics with the color code alerts like orange. Now he’s backing down. Call it the weenie factor, call it what you like.

By Mimi Hall
USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, speaking for the first time about accusations made in his new book, says he did not mean to suggest that other top Bush administration officials were playing politics with the nation’s security before the 2004 presidential election.

“I’m not second-guessing my colleagues,” Ridge said in an interview about The Test of Our Times, which comes out Tuesday and recounts his experiences as head of the nation’s homeland security efforts in the first several years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

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