Where is Tom Ridge?

On Thursday the former Secretary of Homeland Security was in Washington, D.C. at a downtown hotel delivering a canned speech to 300 governmental (mostly law-enforcement) employees interested in searching databases and finding more information about people, corporations, and foreign companies.

He was engaging and enthusiastic and spoke without notes (not needed when it's canned) about "risk management" but his subject had actually little to do with the topic at hand since he talked about himself, his children, and his transportation woes. Poor Tom. He had Secret Service wheels at his disposal for years and when he left Homeland Security, poof! There went his driver. He had to borrow a car from his teenage son, if you can imagine.

Anyway, amidst his waving the terrorist fear flag (he and Rudi Giuliani would make great bed mates), about the only things he said of interest were he thinks waterboarding is torture, he does not condone it, and believes Guantanamo should be closed.

Also, comparing the preparation for Y2K (remember it?) and Katrina: "We only had 2 or 3 days' notice to get ready for Katrina." Really? It had been common knowledge for years that a hurricane striking New Orleans would bring disaster and wreck havoc. Who was to know 2.5 years later the city would still lie lifeless and full of waste like a description in a science fiction novel? Only New Orleans is not science fiction. Perhaps Tom was inside his Secret Service vehicle, sheltered from the outside world like so many members of the Buzh Regime.

Ridge said Buzh tried to talk about the crisis facing Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid, but "everyone said it was not a problem". What? Instead of a Secret Service car, maybe Ridge has been riding in a space ship circling Pluto this whole time.

Ridge is the CEO of Ridge Global LLC which specializes in "global engagement" (not defined)and the remaining 2008 buzz words: "technology integration", "change management" and "other issue that encompass a diverse portfolio".

Say Tom: What would you recommend about fixing New Orleans? Not announced. And it's not the Democratic Party, but the "Democrat Party". Please!