Al Franken: What in God’s Name is Going On?

Last Friday I was on the panel of Bill Maher’s season finale of his HBO show “Real Time.” Bill’s guest by satellite was Senator Norm Coleman from my home state of Minnesota. Because Coleman serves on the homeland security committee, Maher asked him to comment on former homeland security director Tom Ridge’s recent revelation that the Bush administration would often issue terror alerts that he didn’t think were warranted. Could it be that they were using terror alerts politically?

Coleman answered that it was always good to err on the side of caution. Maher followed by asking Coleman if it struck him as odd that there haven’t been any terror alerts since the election?

After a long laugh from the audience, Coleman answered with some stuff about there still being a high level alert, but then reassured everybody with: "If in fact people used these things for political purposes, I’m sure Congress will look into that."