Howard Dean has not only been unrepentant of his accusation that the Bush administration is needlessly raising the terror alert level in the wake of the Democrat convention, he is standing his ground and saying it again:

“There’s one of two possibilities here. One, we need a new president so we can really take care of intelligence needs and the defense of the United States of America against terrorism. Or two, they’re playing politics with their timing of the release of these documents,” Dean said.

This accusation is particularly galling when one thinks about the tremendous amount of resources that is expended whenever a terror alert is issued. Additional police. More restrictive measures on the civilian population. Whole departments of federal organizations swing into action.

To think that a president could get away with making this kind of stuff up in our transparent society is ludicrous.

My reply to Dean: one, you can’t be talking about Kerry when you say we need a president that can really take care of intelligence. Kerry missed 38 of 49 public hearings during the eight years he served on the intelligence panel.

And two: Dean obviously doesn’t read the papers because he seems unaware that we are involved in a Global War on Terror:

• ABC News: Al Qaeda May Be Plotting to Attack More U.S. Sites: “But ABC News has learned there were references in the computer files to 10 other potential targets: seven additional targets in New York, one in Washington, another in New Jersey, and the Bank of America building in San Francisco.”
• UK Sun: Al-Qaeda plot smashed as 13 nicked “Armed police seized the Muslim men in a wave of raids across the country following a top secret operation involving MI5. They swooped after intelligence warned of an international plot to commit a terrorist atrocity.”
• BBC News: S Africa alarm over ‘terror plot’ “They have picked up on reports from Pakistan that the two South African Muslims arrested there were planning attacks on a series of high profile targets, including government buildings and the United States embassy in Pretoria, the Johannesburg city centre and the Cape Town waterfront.”
• New York Times: Qaeda Strategy Is Called Cause for New Alarm “They scouted the streets. They took photographs. They wrote detailed surveillance reports. And then, after five years of patiently waiting, Al Qaeda operatives carried out the devastating suicide truck bombing at the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in August 1998, killing more than 200 people and injuring thousands.”
• Reuters: Two Men Arrested at Albany, N.Y., Mosque “Two men with suspected al Qaeda links were arrested in a sting operation on an Albany, New York, mosque early on Thursday in a money-laundering scheme to buy a shoulder-fired missile, law enforcement sources said.”