Letter: Give terror color codes meaning

Thursday, May 30, 2002 | 8:54 a.m.

We are all familiar by now with Tom Ridge's "Terror Chart," a color-coded hilarious mess, meant to warn us of imminent disasters to expect. Ridge is, of course, President Bush's appointee as head of the new office of homeland security.

At present, green means everything is fine -- go shopping, spend money you don't have, and pretend our country is in safe, competent hands. But then the colors progress to red, the worst color meaning "grab your families and run like hell for the hills."

But these colors can more appropriately be applied to the present administration such as:

Green -- Cover-ups are working great, public appears stupid and preoccupied, not to worry. Let's have some pretzels and beer.

Yellow -- Some idiot leaked some information, darn it! And questions are even being raised by the voters, Oh, well, get Bill O'Reilly, he'll blame everything on Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Orange -- Oh! Oh! Public is getting smarter. Better start spinning. Put Condoleezza Rice and Ari Fleischer on TV. Tell them to say "we thought they would only be 'traditional' plane hijackings, that's all."

Red -- They're on to us! Warm up Air Force I, send Dubya to Europe -- and get President Cheney out of his bunker -- quick!

This is just a more meaningful version of the terror chart, that's all.

RUTH DI MAGGIO