corrente

Herewith:

To the Editor:

Re "U.S. Warns of High Risk of Qaeda Attack" (front page, Aug. 2):

This latest "code orange" warning of a terrorist attack by Al Qaeda doesn't quite fit into the "safer America" scenario that President Bush keeps boasting about!

One can only speculate as to how much safer we could be if all our military and intelligence efforts had been directed against Al Qaeda.
Doris Fenig
Floral Park, Queens, Aug. 2, 2004

To the Editor:

Re "A Few Larger Questions Beyond the Where and How" (news analysis, Aug. 2):

I believe that the American people would be less likely to believe that the terror alerts are not political if Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, had not ended his press conference on Sunday by saying,
"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."

Mr. Ridge made it political at that moment.

Sharon Howell
Baton Rouge, La., Aug. 2, 2004
To the Editor:

I live in northern New Jersey and work in Midtown Manhattan, near the Citicorp Center. I was listening carefully to Tom Ridge's warning, as the sites he was mentioning for possible attacks basically encompassed all of my daily life. Then he 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."

I realized that I was listening to a paid political announcement and turned the radio off. The credibility of the announcement had been reduced to zero.

John Morley
Ridgewood, N.J., Aug. 2, 2004
(via the Letters-and-Krugman-are-the-Only-Reliable-Parts-of-It-Times)

Ol' Tom really screwed the pooch on this one, didn't he? Heh. Of course, his only real qualification for the job was that he made the Republican National Convention to run on time in 2000 when it was in Philly—by illegally arresting demonstrators. Oh, that's his job this year too, isn't it?