Bush's popularity increases after terror threats announced

Last week President Bush tapped federal appeals court judge Michael Chertoff to succeed Tom Ridge as secretary of the Homeland Security Department. Though Chertoff likely has a smooth confirmation ahead, his first and most significant task as homeland security chief will be daunting: restore credibility to the embattled department.

Chertoff can begin to mend the public face of the department by abandoning the color-coded alert system and vague public pronouncements of terror threats typical of Ridge's tenure. Throughout Bush's first term it was unclear what purpose was served by these regular broadcasts of important intelligence. The vagueness of most warnings offered little more than fear. By spending less time at press conferences, Chertoff can also assure Americans he is working hard at the mostly invisible job of actually fighting terrorism, with little interest in scaring the public.

In its short tenure, the homeland security department has been indicted at home and abroad for manipulating terror warnings in an effort to buttress Bush's popularity. Despite Ridge's claims, it remains an open question to the public and the international community whether the department "plays politics" in its daily business.

This past year's terror warnings were as vague as in previous years and increased in unreliability and imprecision as the election drew nearer. Most notoriously, in an August news conference Ridge issued a terror warning for the New York City and Washington, D.C., financial districts. Ridge did not mention that most of the "new" intelligence he cited when he raised the threat level to orange actually pre-dated the 9/11 attacks. Shortly after the election the terror threat levels in New York City and Washington, D.C., were quietly lowered.

The notion that terror warnings have been manipulated for political purposes rests on the assumption that they buttress the president's popularity. To investigate this assumption in more depth, I conducted research published in September in "Current Research in Social Psychology" on the effects of terror warnings on presidential approval. In this research, I analyzed all government-issued terror warnings announced between 2001 and 2004 and the ensuing Gallup poll results. My findings indicate that Bush's approval tends to increase after announcements of terror threats.

However, my research cannot testify to explicit manipulation for the purposes of political gain. The fact that the president benefited politically from the government's terror warnings does not necessarily mean he uses them for that purpose. What the research does show is that homeland security is a potentially dangerous weapon that could easily be used for political purposes.

Ridge was right in thinking it was essential to communicate that the department doesn't play politics, though he was himself unsuccessful in this effort. Chertoff's goal should be to immediately reform the department's public face.

If the United States' homeland security efforts are not perceived as legitimate, we face difficulty in building the international cooperation we will need to effectively fight terrorism. While the United States has a long way to go before its war on terror is widely accepted at home and abroad, we should remember the outpouring of sympathy and support in the wake of 9/11.

Our fight against terrorism is a potential unifying issue that can and should be used to enhance the United States' security and position in the world.

Robb Willer is a sociologist at Cornell University who studies the effects of terrorism on public opinion.

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