London Endures, Chertoff Takes the Stage

Posted on July 7, 2005

The deadly terrorist bombings in London today appear to have been timed to coordinate with the G8 Summit and the announcement of the city as the 2012 Olympic venue, to provide maximum exposure and terror. But London isn't Manhattan in 2001. This is a city and a people that have been dealing with terrorists for years with the IRA bombings. Emergency services operated quickly and efficiently, and world leaders quickly closed ranks behind Tony Blair. Everyone put politics aside during the crisis, which is as it should be. We are all British today.

In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security raised the terror threat level, but only for mass transportation. We got our first look at Michael Chertoff in a crisis. He did pretty well; he talks much faster and more forcibly than Tom Ridge. He sounds competent, he fairly exudes impatience as he hops from foot to foot. If he weren't hellbent on stripsearching U.S. citizens at airports with x-ray machines and expanding the Patriot Act to the point where U.S. citizens will have virtually no privacy left, he might actually be a fairly decent Homeland Security Secretary. He seems quite agressive: how about turning that enthusiasm against the terrorists instead of against law-abiding U.S. citizens?