From the Politico article:

Bush vets dismiss Ridge claims

Top officials from the George W. Bush White House are disputing claims in former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's coming book that they pressured him to adjust the terror threat level for political gain.

“We went over backwards repeatedly and with great discipline to make sure politics did not influence any national security and homeland security decisions,” former White House chief of staff Andy Card told POLITICO. “The clear instructions were to make sure politics never influenced anything.”

“I'm a little mystified,” former homeland security adviser Fran Townsend added in an interview. “Never in my experience did I see any political influence exerted on the cabinet secretary.”

[...]

Townsend said she tried to reach out to Ridge before speaking with POLITICO, but was told he is on vacation. She said though that a number of ex-Bush officials she talked to Thursday were surprised by the news.

“People are surprised,” she said. “I've heard from folks asking me if this was consistent with anything I knew and I just keep saying no.”

“I didn't even know Tom was even really writing a book,” said Card. [Politico; 8/20/09]

In 2005, Ridge said there were times when he questioned need to raise threat level

Ridge: “There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' ”

In May 2005, USA Today reported:

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level, Ridge now says.

Ridge, who resigned Feb. 1, said Tuesday that he often disagreed with administration officials who wanted to elevate the threat level to orange, or “high” risk of terrorist attack, but was overruled.

His comments at a Washington forum describe spirited debates over terrorist intelligence and provide rare insight into the inner workings of the nation's homeland security apparatus.

Ridge said he wanted to “debunk the myth” that his agency was responsible for repeatedly raising the alert under a color-coded system he unveiled in 2002.

“More often than not we were the least inclined to raise it,” Ridge told reporters. “Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment. Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good, you don't necessarily put the country on (alert). ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it, and we said, 'For that?' ” [USA Today; 5/10/05]

Politico latest outlet to ignore Ridge's 2005 comments

Covering bogus threat, cable news ignored Ridge's claims. During coverage of a bogus terrorist threat to NFL stadiums in 2006, Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN -- with the exception of Paul Begala -- all also ignored Ridge's 2005 comments.

In interview with Ridge, CNN ignored his 2005 comments. In early 2006, CNN's Jeanne Meserve interviewed Ridge as part of a report about Homeland Security's decision not to raise the national threat level following Osama bin Laden's warning of future attacks against the United States, but did not ask him about his 2005 admission that, while head of DHS, he had regularly been pressured by the Bush administration to raise the threat level even though he did not believe the intelligence warranted it.