Terror Warnings
If there is a specific terrorist threat against financial buildings in NY and DC, I sure want them to tell us, and to take actions to try and thwart it. But the administration has a tough sale to make because of past politicization of the security issue. We'll call it the "consider the source" rule.

Howard Dean was right on when he talked to Chris Matthews:

This is a disturbing pattern in this administration that we see again, and again, and again. And, yes, any administration has the opportunity to manufacture news, and the question is, not is there a terrorist threat or not, there clearly is, not whether al Qaeda presents a danger to these five buildings, yes, it clearly does. What of the timing of the release of this news? Why are we getting news that’s three years old and that we had access to three weeks ago? Why are we finding that out on the Sunday after the Democratic National Convention?

When will they learn? They could have given the information over 2 weeks earlier, or at least made it clear that this scary research is 3 years old. In other words, contrary to the clear signals they sent, there's no particular reason to suspect this week over any other week. After a couple of days of slamming Dean (from not just Cheney, but Lieberman and Kerry himself) for questioning the integrity of the political wing of the White House, the Governor's skepticism is gaining more and more traction, as this new headline from Reuters shows: "Credibility Cloud Hangs Over US Terrorist Warnings"