Wednesday, August
4, 4:32 PM PST
Secretary Ridge Kinda Bored of Scaring
You to Death
by Brent
the Johnson,
NA!P NewsWire
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Tom Ridge, the country's first head
of the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, is bored with
the repetitious nature of his job and is considering leaving
the post soon.
To date, Ridge's only accomplishment
of note has been scaring the shit out of citizens with regularly
scheduled terrorist alerts every two weeks or so.
"Yeah,
it was kind of interesting at first, working for the federal
government, for my country," Ridge said, sighing. "But
lately, I don't know... it's kind of the same old, same old,
day after day."
Beltway insiders have long whispered
that Ridge was dissatisfied simply being George W. Bush's official
scaremonger. However, Ridge had never publicly admitted his unhappiness
until today, when he outlined his role in the Bush Administration.
"Well, there's not much
to say -- I sit by a phone in an office, waiting for the White
House to call," Ridge said. "When I get one, I go to
the podium and tell you all there's a terrorist threat to the
nation, yadda yadda. Then I go back to the office and do some
coloring or something."
And as the presidential election
approaches, Ridge expects that he'll be getting more of the same.
"The only poll in which
Bush leads Kerry is in questions about the War Against Terrorism,"
Ridge said. "So they're probably be more alerts, probably
once a week at least, until after the election."
Boredom isn't the only challenge
Ridge is dealing with -- he fears he'll soon suffer creative
burnout. "There's only so many ways I'm gonna scare the
shit out of you, you know. Even Stephen King couldn't keep up
this pace."
Ridge's comments come a day after
he released yet another warning to the nation to prepare for
terrorist attacks.
"This last one was relatively
interesting," Ridge admitted. "At least Dick Cheney
asked for some meat this time. It kinda sucked that most of the
details were more than three years old. But it's so much better
than the one I released last month -- you know, the one where
I basically said to be scared of everything? That was just so...
blah. I need a challenge, a job that tests my skills."
When asked to describe his greatest
accomplishment as secretary, Ridge said, "I like my color-coded
warning chart. I drew the first one myself, with crayons. The
White House gave me crayons to occupy my time while I waited
for phone calls from them. They're pretty."
