WTF Is It Now?!?

"Hey, look! A yellow alert!"

Three days after Aunt Condo's press briefing, the NY Times broke the "news" that American intelligence agencies were once again picking up vague signals that al-Qaida was planning an operation "as big as the Sept. 11 attacks or bigger." The Times quoted a "senior administration official" saying, "There's just a lot of chatter in the system again." The next day, Rice was talking up the imminent threat on CNN, ABC, and CBS.

The repetition of the phrase "chatter in the system" and the fact that Rice was energetically promoting the notion of an impending attack soon after the Times story broke suggests that Rice was the "senior administration official", and that Rice leaked the story, or at least lent the Times an unusual level of assistance, in order to deflect attention from the growing 'WTF was Cap'n Cowpie doing??!' story.

Meanwhile, in the face of all this 'chatter', we're still stuck at 'Yellow'. According to Homeland Security Presidential Directive Three (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020312-5.html), a yellow alert should prompt consideration of:
1) Increasing surveillance of critical locations;
2) Coordinating emergency plans as appropriate with nearby jurisdictions;
3) Assessing whether the precise characteristics of the threat require the further refinement of preplanned Protective Measures;
4) and Implementing, as appropriate, contingency and emergency response plans.

Nowhere on this list is "5. Spreading panic in order to stifle debate about the Bush administration's competence during prior disasters." But these guidelines are new, and no doubt susceptible to broad interpretation. (snort!)