Mind Artillery V, Michael Chertoff, Warnings of Terror Plot

Michael Chertoff, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, is the most recent to warn of a likely crisis. Unlike other high profile politicos who have pointed towards the time period after the American elections, Mr. Chertoff also tosses in the time period leading up to the election.

"There's a general level of intemperateness in the discussion as we approach the election,'' he (Chertoff) said. "Do I worry that it could trigger in a disturbed individual a desire to do something? Absolutely, I worry about it."

Of course, the authorities must be on guard against "disturbed individuals" just as the Nazis were on guard for the "disturbed" Communist individual who torched the Reichstag. The irony of the comment made on behalf of the Bush administration would seem to have escaped Mr. Chertoff.

Full Bloomberg story here.