All together now: "Sorry, Mr. Dean"

Today it was revealed that the intelligence behind Sunday's elevated terror warnings in East Coast cities was years and years old, much of it predating 9/11. Nevertheless, says the White House, the information is relevant. I wonder how this jibes with their oft-repeated claim that since 9/11, over two-thirds of the known al Qaeda leadership has either been captured or killed? In other words, if information was gathered in 2000, and then 2/3 of the leadership that did the gathering is now gone, how can we know if the current leadership even still has the information? So if Tom Ridge claims that the information is relevant, does that mean this leadership is NOT decimated? Which is it, guys? Is al Qaeda dead and buried or alive and well? Of course, the government wants it both ways. You should still be afraid and look to your Dear Leader Preznit Bush to protect you, but also we've destroyed al Qaeda and they're no longer a threat.

This seems to exonerate Howard Dean, who again says what the press decides is an outrageous statement, only to have it proved at least somewhat right in retrospect. First he said "The capture of Saddam Hussein does not make Iraq and the US safer," which shocked everyone until they realized that Americans are dying in Iraq at an ever-faster rate. Now he claims that these constant terror alerts are at least a little politically motivated, and everyone's shocked until the revelation of the ancient nature of the intelligence is revealed THE NEXT DAY. One of Ridge's alibis is that some of the information was updated as recently as this January. Um, so why wasn't the terror alert made IN JANUARY? That doesn't exactly help your case.

Sometimes with this blog I feel like I'm screaming into the wind. At least sites like Daily Kos and Atrios and people like Paul Krugman have reached these conclusions as well. It makes me feel like I'm not going insane.