Tom Ridge has a book to sell and a book, to sell, needs a big, juicy, media-ready nugget...

... a chunk of steak buried in the dog food. Grrrrrrr.... mmmm.... grrrrr..... num num num....

AND: The denials are predictable:

"Under no circumstance was Tom Ridge or anyone else directed to change the threat level... It didn’t work that way, and it certainly didn’t work that way in 2004. It was always an apolitical process."

Ridge "felt pressured." They didn't "direct." Everybody could be telling the (half) truth.