Rachel Maddow interviews Tom Ridge on politicizing terror threat alerts

Video link (MSNBC), and YouTube link (for folks in places where the official source is region-blocked.)

This, my friends, is why we have television. Man, but Rachel Maddow kicks all kinds of ass. Here, she interviews former US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on revelations that the "Terror Threat Level" system was manipulated for political purposes during the Bush Administration.

As Jay Rosen aptly tweeted just now, "There are times when TV truly is an x-ray. Dissembling made visible. (...) To work himself out of the bind she had gotten him into, Ridge actually disavowed the jacket copy of his own book under Maddow's questioning."

Background: Ridge Claims That He Was Pressured to Elevate Threat Warning (Washington Post)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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jjasper

All the stuttering repetition of “at no time…” is pretty suspicious.
mrfoo

I don’t understand. What’s supposed to be good journalism about this? She seems like she has something she wants him to say, and is getting very frustrated that she can’t get him to say it. She labours the same point long after everything there is to say about it has long been exhausted. It’s actually a bit embarrassing to watch.

I think America desperately needs Jeremy Paxman to come over and grill your politicians. They’re all far too comfortable with the softball questions they’re offered.
nerak

And this is why I watch her show, ditto #1.
tomboing

He looks trustworthy, he sounds trustworthy, he has a likable manner, he’s civil, and he’s a liar.

And he’s very good at being ambiguous, confusing, and vague without seeming to do it on purpose. But he is doing it on purpose.

And his sentences are very sloppy, leaving him wiggle room if he ever gets called on any of it.

These are all techniques of the dishonest. He’s got such an honest face and such a trustable manner and he’s just another Republican phony.
PopinjayRose

Too bad it’s on MSNBC and nobody saw it.
StRevAlex

Yeah, and since it was on Rachel Maddow, definitely no one watched it.
Brainspore

Something must be wrong. I could have sworn I just saw a television interviewer asking questions other than the ones that the politician being interviewed wanted to answer.
Anonymous

I just went to MSNBC.com and watched it again. I’m going to watch it over and over and even click on the ads, not only for the entertainment value, but to help drive Rachel’s numbers through the roof. She’s gonna be noticed for this.

She makes me wish I was a woman so I would have a chance with her.
avraamov

it’s probably a cold thread now, but:

http://www.sensitivebrigade.com/orangealert.html
IamInnocent

he’s just another Republican phony.

If you don’t mind: he’s just another ~~Republican~~ political phony. We are, pretty much all over the world, submitted to that kind of manipulations, all the time. Quite frankly, I am not sure if I’d give Obama or most Dems (and Republicans but they’re not in power, for the moment) the time of the day, seeing how ineffective they are at enacting laws that will benefit the people, while they are so efficient at destruction, coercion, grabbing more and more powers, spying on us, nepotism and bribery.
normd

I watched the last segment of the interview, and found it quite interesting. Also found myself thinking of her as the “serious” Jon Stewart.

Back in the days when I listened to Air America and RM filled in for whoever had the morning show, I was impressed. I might start watching TV again.
Anonymous

She rocks my world. Love Rachel!
Jason Rizos

It makes me so depressed that people call Maddow the “liberal equivalent” of Limbaugh/Hannity/Beck.

She’s doing genuine journalism. Is is left-leaning? Of course. Is it a back of utter lies? NO. Hence, no equivalency. Yet, here we are.
pmocek

I just see a big black box on the MSNBC site using Firefox 3 on Linux with some Flash plugin that generally makes flash work. Is this a Windows-only thing? Can someone provide a direct link to the video?
pmocek

For now, at least, Rachel Maddow’s 2009-09-01 interview with Tom Ridge is on YouTube.
ValuedRug

But the far left mainstream dust jacket makers!
Anonymous

@#39: The BBC is government-owned, but the journalists’ actual jobs are to get the news. US corporate-owned media’s job is to make money for their parent corporations. As a result, the only people a US journalist can safely ask hard questions of are those people not owned by the corporation. Maddow seems to be an exception, and I’m frankly amazed she still has a job.
Jay Acker

I am a gay man and I realize she is a gay woman, yet I have an honest crush on her.

Is she easy on the eyes? Yes.

Is she funny and entertaining? Oh yes.

But the main reason I watch her show at least once a night is because as a trained journalist myself I can recognize that she is quite plainly one of the few left in a relatively prominent position that cares for the craft.
schmod

Is it sad that the only other hard-hitting interviews I can recall in recent memory were done by Jon Stewart?
pmocek

Here’s the money quote: “I think that is an eloquent argument and I have to tell you: I think you making that argument right now is why Republicans after the Bush and Cheney administration are not going to get back the country’s trust on national security. To look back at that decision and say, “We got it wrong, but it was in good faith,” and not acknowledge the *foregone conclusion* that we were going to invade Iraq that pervaded every decision that was made about intelligence. The problem– Looking back at that decision making process, it sounds like you’re making the argument you would have made the same decision again. Americans need to believe that our government would not make that wrong a decision that would not make such a– take such a foregone conclusion to such an important issue that the intelligence that proved the opposite point was all discounted. That the intelligence was combed through for any bit that would support the foregone conclusion of the policy makers. They system was broken, and if you don’t see that the system was broken and you think it was just that the intel was wrong… I think that you’re one of the most trusted voices on national security for the Republican party and I think that’s the elephant in the room. I don’t think you guys can get back your credibility on national security until you realize that was a wrong decision made by policy makers. It wasn’t the spies’ fault.”
EscapingTheTrunk

CIA interrogators are irrelevant. Stewart & Maddow should now handle all prisoner questioning. We’d get more and better information, without torture.

Also, kudos to MSNBC for not region-blocking.
Anonymous

Fire David Gregory and get Rachel on Meet the Press ASAP please.
Anonymous

Rachel tore that Tom Ridge a new one and I saw it live. I will tell everybody I know about this. That was what needs to happen to all these lying revisionists, get called out on the lies. I love you, Rachel.
Anonymous

PMOCEK @ #16.

Is that quote in this video?
Brainspore

mrfoo #22:

What’s supposed to be good journalism about this? She seems like she has something she wants him to say, and is getting very frustrated that she can’t get him to say it. She labours the same point long after everything there is to say about it has long been exhausted.

She labored the same point until the interviewee was forced to give an actual answer. (Most just let the guy answer the question he wishes the interviewer asked.) In doing so she got Ridge to disavow the text on the dust jacket of his own book- I’d say that counts for something. She also did it all in a civil manner.
Anonymous

This is an excellent video to show people who want to go into politics on how to lie. Dam the facts, dam the evidence that is there in black and white, the simple fact is if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as truth.
Anonymous

I’m with @22 (and not looking for ways to defend anything Bushie or Bushie-like, trust me).
It’s entirely human (and responsible) for Ridge to have considered alterior motives when others’ interpretations of threats didn’t match his. It’s actually quite honest for him to admit in his book that he had those thoughts at the time. But it’s not contradictory to later conclude that those opinions of others only had security interests at heart.
@26 Sure, she never let Ridge off the hook, but perhaps it was unfair not to.
getjustin

Any thought that the Terror Alert System was supposed to be anything BUT political is laughable. It’s designed as an utterly meaningless fear-mongering tool.
DWittSF

Homeland Security is a fraud.
senorglory

aw man, he took it all back. disavowed what he has written in his book. I thought he was going to come clean. darn lawyer.
pmocek

@41: I don’t know. The MSNBC streaming stuff doesn’t work for me. It’s in this clip of the interview on YouTube, which has not, surprisingly, been pulled yet.
Keneke

It’s like that quick change that Rick James did on the Dave Chappelle show.
Chris Spurgeon

Americans should watch Newsnight on the BBC. Full on critical questioning of political leaders seems to be the norm there. Why is that the case while it’s vanishingly rare here in the U.S.?
tomboing

#9 — There’s a huge difference between Democrats and today’s Republicans. Politicians in general are dealmakers and compromisers — everyone knows that. But the lying of Republicans has become so gross, so obvious, so indisputable, so nearly unanimous, that I really don’t think any sensible observer worries they might be telling the truth — nor thinks the failures and misdeed of Democrats are even remotely as bad. We don’t have to be falsely fair here — the rotten Republicans deserve to be called rotten and the better grade of politicians deserve to be recognized as cut from a better cloth.
afs97209

Tom Ridge got that Bronze Star is Vietnam as a Staff Sergeant, huh? In the movie Platoon, wasn’t Barnes a Staff Sergeant?

Oliver Stone wrote the screenplay for Platoon long before Ridge came to national prominence. Just noticing that Ridge fit the Barnes model.

By the way, I love Rachel Maddow’s interviewing style too. Been following here since she was first hired at Air America. She has been doing interviews that way since her first days there.

She said in an interview she really detests how disrespectful interviews had gotten, and that mshe had always said she would go about things differently if she had the chance.
Unanimous Cowherd

In the YouTube comments, several people mention how he “sniffs” after each lie. And he does. Repeatedly. Isn’t that often a subconscious lie indicator? Or does he just have allergies?
mdh

Or does he just have allergies?

he’s allergic to direct answers
Anonymous

Move over Julia Child. You just saw a real pro cook up some turkey fricassee.
Anonymous

I’ve only recently and only occassionally watched Ms. Maddow’s show, but what I have seen is pretty impressive. Perhaps she is the last true investigative journalist. I hope she lives a damned long time and inspires others to follow in her path.

Unanimous Cowherd @33:

If we can get him to the poker table, we can find out for certain. Particularly a hold-’em table. On TV. So we can all see it. He can invite his buddies from the former admin. so we can see their tells, too. Then we can watch old tapes of interviews and press conferences to see what about and when these lying s.o.bs were lying.
D3

Very good interview segment, in the simple, non-flashy style with which all TV interviews should be done. Both were in my opinion very well-spoken.

It is a cheap shot however, no indignantly observe that Ridge “disavowed the jacket copy of his own book”. Anyone who has read a book, and the jacket copy, knows that the jacket copy is generally not written by the author, but by a copywriter for the publisher, with the obvious purpose of helping to sell the book.
ToddBradley

I don’t know what the big deal is here. She keeps asking the same questions over and over, and he keeps giving the same answers over and over. They’re both awesome at being repetitive. Whoopee!

He says he thought at first politics might be playing into the threat level, but then realized that wasn’t the case. He said he didn’t write the dust jacket copy for the book. That’s not news, either.
mgfarrelly

What’s lovely here? No shouting. No insults. No talking over each other, or cutting of mics. No rising music or faux producers off camera.

Just a host, asking hard questions and a subject not answering them very well.

How sad a thing that this is the exception, and not the rule, when it comes to television journalism.
Anonymous

@ #17, What a great Idea. I have a hard time watching meet the press nowadays! But would definitely watch it if Rachel hosted it.