Should Kerry and Lieberman apologize to Dean?

[kentuck]

http://vod.lpbn.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=6

In a speech he made in Los Angles on December 15, Howard Dean acknowledged that it was "a good thing" for "our soldiers in Iraq and around the world" that Saddam Hussein had been captured, but then quickly added that it had "not made America safer." Two of his Democratic rivals, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, immediately expressed outrage over what they regarded as Dean's poor judgment. In an obvious reference to Saddam's final hiding spot, Lieberman said Dean "has put himself in his own spider hole of denial...and there should be no doubt that America... safer." Kerry called Dean's speech "proof that all the advisors in the world can't give Howard Dean the military and foreign policy experience, leadership skills, or diplomatic temperament necessary to lead this country through dangerous times."

Since neither Lieberman nor Kerry explained exactly how America is now safer, we were all left to merely wonder whether or not the two senators might be right. But then on December 21, when he announced that the threat level of a terrorist attack had gone from "elevated" to "high risk" (orange code), Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge blatantly contradicted Lieberman and Kerry, and implicitly portrayed Dean as remarkably prescient. Reading to reporters from a prepared statement, Ridge said: "The strategic indicators, including al-Qaida's continued desire to carry out attacks against our homeland, are perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001." Ridge further warned that the strikes might "rival or exceed the attacks that occurred...nearly two years ago."

Did the terror alert prompt Lieberman and Kerry to retract their now discredited criticism of Dean? Nope. Neither one had a word to say about the identical match between Ridge's statement and the homeland security assessment that Dean had made one week earlier. Lieberman even had the gall to suggest that he had shared Dean's concerns all along.

In light of the heightened terror threat, Mayor Jimmy Hahn announced that private vehicles are banned from picking up or dropping off passengers at Los Angeles International Airport until January 4. Airport spokesman Harold Johnson described the holiday precautions as "the tightest security measures we have implemented since the September 11 attacks." Similarly, Air France cancelled six flights between Paris and Los Angeles on December 24 and 25 after the U.S. embassy warned that some passengers might try to use the planes to strike American buildings. No word yet on whether Lieberman and Kerry view these developments as evidence of Dean's incompetence.

[Fridays Child]

1. "...nearly two years ago?" Just exactly when were Ridge's remarks written?

From http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=2707:

The information we have indicates that extremists abroad are anticipating near-term attacks that they believe will either rival, or exceed, the attacks that occurred in New York and the Pentagon and the fields of Pennsylvania nearly two years ago.

Uh, Tom? That's an interesting error you made. It's been two years and three months since those attacks occurred. It makes me wonder if your boss originally scheduled this particular orange threat for sometime before September 11, 2003, and you just neglected to update your speech.