Ridge Backtracks On Politics Of Threat Levels

As former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge begins his media tour, he is trying to put the rabbit back in the hat, as it were. Here's a representative quotation:

Now, Ridge says he did not mean to suggest he was pressured to raise the threat level, and he is not accusing anyone of trying to boost Bush in the polls. "I was never pressured," Ridge said.

The former secretary and Pennsylvania governor, who now heads a security consulting firm called Ridge Global, also said in the interview that:

Here is what he wrote in the book:

"Ashcroft strongly urged an increase in the threat level, and was supported by Rumsfeld," he writes. "There was absolutely no support for that position within our department. None. I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?'"