THE PROFESSIONAL SOUL-SEARCHER

Tom Ridge's soul-searching was big news on cable 68 yesterday, that's where Olbermann's Countdown is here in Pasadena.

It was convenient source for outrage again today.

"Tom Ridge, he of the color-coded terror alerts, has now confirmed what many of us suspected all along: that declarations of a higher threat level were called for political purposes, so as to step on Democratic messages or divert attention from Republican scandals," wrote Paul Krugman.

Yet ... (others) say that they were justified in ignoring the strong circumstantial evidence that this was happening, and that those who saw the truth in real time could not and should not have been taken seriously."

But Ridge, like any other official from the Bush administration, is a poor messenger and tardy. Like Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's chief of staff who is popular on the left for going on talk shows (now well after the fact) to deliver the comforting news that -- yes -- the Bush administration traded in bullshit, Ridge now has his get-out-of-jail-free card.

However, one is impressed by how self-serving it all is. The news was timed for release on Thursday, just in time to make all the shows and on-line news agencies primed for it. And not too late -- like late today (the slot everyone reserves for the release of news wished to be buried) -- to get lost before everyone headed off for the weekend.

In other words, another perfect manipulation, suitable for an outpour of indignation -- for example, this directed at a generally hapless government apologist celebrity journalist and sod named Marc Ambinder.

"So I was open to the early evidence that the case for war was a fraud; nothing except deference to power prevented mainstream journalists from reaching the same conclusion," continued Krugman in his blog.

While Krugman may have been open to evidence, his newspaper -- as well as many others -- were not.

By way of example and from first-hand experience, the New York Times was offered hard evidence that the Bush administration's claim (carried by Colin Powell) of a terrorist network stretching from Iraq to a cell in the UK was a fraud. That was in late 2004. The newspaper turned the information away.

I know because I had it. (See here, here, and here.)

And because no one in the US press was interested in the story, I published it at GlobalSecurity.Org where it remains the only complete account of these events. So even when the truth of something comes out, time is very important.

"But it's too late, always has been, always will be too late," says Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen.