On Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge
"I don't think he's quick-studied himself into what this is about. He's accepted the party lines. Maybe he still has that streak in him. But you have to be the person in the administration who says, 'I don't care if I'm a sore thumb. This is what we are going to do. Let them fire me."
On hard choices in protecting against terrorism.
"The question is how would we change the rules of engagement. How do we convince the American public that racial and ethnic profiling isn't something that's trying to once again separate people into upper and lower classes - haves and have nots-but we're all in this together?"
On Israel's airline security:
"Nothing's happened to El Al since 1968. The biggest target in the world. Why? Because you can't get on if you're the least bit suspicious. And the way they handle screenings is if they want to give you an enema, they're going to do that, too."
This I must agree with. Ridge is a career politician with ambitions to high office. And as such he is not the type to take career-ending risk.
Ridge will follow the common wisdom and won’t rock the boat unless he has GW and most of the Republican Caucus behind him.
He has shown this already in spades. One only has to look at the issue of arming pilots to understand the truth of what Gale is saying.