Ok pretty much everything I have heard Howard Dean say (at least since he left the race) I agree with almost completely. As I mentioned in an earlier post about his debate with Ralph Nader, I love Howard Dean, he saved the Democratic Party. And even though this subject may be hard to talk about without sounding like a crazy, mouth frothing liberal, I think Howard Dean is mostly right. He gives some common-sense evidence to support his argument that the TIMING of these terror alerts, are at least partially related to political maneuvering.

t r u t h o u t - Focus: Howard Dean | Terror Alerts - Substance or Politics?

"And, the Department of Homeland Security played the political card again at the press conference on August 1. Ridge spent time informing Americans that the President was a great leader in the fight against terror. Ridge said, "We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the President's leadership in the war against terror.""

Now before you dismiss me, on thinking this is VERY possible, please take a moment to read the next two articles.

The New Republic Online: July Surprise?

..."a White House aide told ul-Haq[Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence director] last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT[High Value Target] were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston."

The New Republic Online: July Surprised

"But it is doubtful Hayyat[Pakistan's interior minister] was really addressing his fellow Pakistanis: He made the announcement[arrest of a high-ranking Al Qaeda figure] at midnight. More likely, his intended audience was half a world away--in the United States, where, in the middle of the afternoon, John Kerry was preparing to deliver his nomination speech to the Democratic National Convention."

And then take a read at this.

This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow: August 08, 2004 - August 14, 2004 Archives

..."September is about to become "National Preparedness Month."

Heck, this Red Cross page flatly states that Tom Ridge will make the official announcement on September 9th.

Whoa.

(Why September 9th? That's awfully late, if it's supposed to be the entire month. My guess, thinking like Karl Rove: this year's 9/11 anniversary falls on a Saturday, so an announcement on the date or even Friday would only get a burst of free media on a weekend. But by timing it for the 6 pm news on Thursday, it'll reach the Friday papers, and thus be fully-injected into all of the emotion-laden anniversary coverage, plus the Sunday morning talk shows.)

The idea, obviously, is to throw a large amount of focus, possibly for weeks on end, on the only issue on which Bush outpolls Kerry. And of course this will come on the heels of the GOP convention. So where the Democrats' post-convention media got blitzed with terror warnings based on years-old intelligence, the Republicans' afterglow might well be favorably extended"...

Now tell me that there is not a possibility that there is some political motivation to the TIMING of these alerts.