Seems that our current Terra alert is due to some polygraphs that may have been a tad deceptive, and the fact that apparently the CIA waited about three weeks before sharing some of its information with the FBI. So much for the new intelligence community cooperation. On ABC's This Week this morning, Tom Ridge had this to say under the Stephanopolous grilling (not):

Ridge defended the Bush administration's decision last week to increase the level to the second from the top on a color-coded scale of five, even though the government later determined that some of the information which led to the upgrading was likely fabricated.

"The decision to raise it to orange was not based on one or two sources," he said on ABC's "This Week."

But wait, it gets better, and I thought that he was just going to answer questions about the terror alert. I guess he hasn't learned how to sing with the 1600 Crew Hymnal yet. Georgie was asking him about the bad polygraphs and then asked him about the "known" Al-Qaida suspects in this country and here's part of Ridge's response:

"We know that they've got a rather substantial network. But this is a country that operates under the rule of law. There are restrictions to what we can do and when can do it," he said. "When the rule of law and the burden of proof gets us to where we can take action, then I assure you we will."

I guess that he missed the part where Herr Reichsfuhrer Ashkroft was rounding up any swarthy immigrant with a parking ticket and holding them without benefit of counsel, where there are at least two American Citizens are being deprived of their due process rights and where the original Patriot Act allows some pretty un-American behavior, and the new one makes us look like Nazi Germany II.