Blitzer interview with Townsend echoes Bush-era media failures regarding alleged terror threats

SUMMARY: During a discussion with former Bush adviser Fran Townsend about former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's reported claim that politics may have played a role in the question of whether to raise the terror threat levels on the eve of the November 2004 presidential election, Wolf Blitzer asked Townsend if there was any "hard intelligence" to back up the claim that the terror threat level should have been raised. After Townsend responded that "earlier that summer, there had been the threat against the financial districts in New York, Washington, and New Jersey," Blitzer did not ask Townsend to explain how the financial districts plot, thwarted in August 2004 and based on information that was "three or four years old," was still considered "hard" evidence that the terror threat should have been raised more than two months after the plot was thwarted.

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