Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Rachel Maddow Interviews Tom Ridge

Rachel Maddow interviewed former Secretary of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, earlier this week on The Rachel Maddow Show. The interview covered Ridge's recent book release, in which he seems to claim that he was pressured to raise the color-coded terror alert system in order to give President Bush's approval ratings a boost prior to the 2004 election. In this three part interview with Maddow, Ridge backtracks on these claims as he tries to "clarify" what he meant.

Ridge and Maddow also discuss the impact that the Department of Homeland Security had on the government's lack of response to the citizens of New Orleans during the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005 and how Ridge was very vocal in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003. As you will see, Ridge is still very adamant that invading Iraq was the correct thing to do and that the failure was one of faulty intelligence. Maddow presses him on the Iraq War being a war of choice in which the evidence was fixed around a political policy, but Ridge is adamant that this was not the case. The interview concludes with one of the more interesting exchanges of all three segments.

It is also worthy to note that Maddow's style and temperament are top-notch and, as Ridge even states, this turns out to be a very good discussion that allows for an open exchange of views. Maddow does a good job in pressing Ridge on various points and while there is much more that I would have liked to have seen covered, she does a good job given the time constraints. Below are all three segments:





Posted by Chris Johnson at 12:34 PM
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