The non-politics of safety

As questions continue to surface about the driving force behind the intelligence that led to the raising of the terror level in Washington and New York this week, the Associated Press quotes Secretary Ridge: "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security."

For a self-described non-politico, however, his comments at the press briefing Sunday just may indicate who he might be voting for this November. Ridge apolitically noted that "the kind of information available to us today is the result of the President's leadership in the war against terror."

At a time when the two presidential camps are clamoring for homeland supremacy, Ridge's comments sound far from benign and only serve to feed skeptics who wonder whether politics, or actual threats, are driving the alert system.