What's with Tom Ridge?

I was pressured, no I wasn't. Yes I was, no I wasn't.

Tom Ridge is confusing me. He's on Rachel Maddow, denying that 'politics' influenced anyone's decision making process regarding the decision to raise the threat level prior to the 2004 elections. I get why people on the Left have a problem with the threat-level being raised before an election, the incumbent President had, on average, gotten a bump in the polls any time there was a decision to raise the threat level. I also get why the White House may have HONESTLY thought they should raise the threat level, it was an election. It's a great day to attack (from the perspective of a terrorist). The real issue is not whether the Bush Administration 'politicized' the process, but rather, whether the process made any sense to begin with. I can picture some lonely political appointee sitting around trying to discern what day Al Qaeda might attack. Maybe there were tarot cards involved, or chicken bones or something. I can just picture him/her, 'well, July 4th, that's kind of an important day, I bet that would be a day a terrorist might like to attack us.' There was probably more to it than that, but I bet that was at the root of a lot of the threat level increases.

The other issue at hand is, what was the point of the color coded threat level thermometer? Am I supposed to stay home the day we go to yellow? Cancel my flights? Just get irrationally afraid, even though I'm living in rural Arkansas and have a 0.0 likelihood of ever being targeted by any terrorist, minus our local right-wing militia member or abortion bomber? That's the real issue. Did they ever politicize it? Who knows? How could you tell the difference?