Terror Alert Correlation with Approval Ratings

JuliusBlog has an interesting chart showing the history of Bush's approval rating, correlating it with terror alerts.

There are few things that are quite evident from the chart:

- Whenever his ratings dip, there's a new terror alert.

- Every terror alert is followed by a slight uptick of Bush approval ratings.

- Whenever there are many unfavorable headlines, there's another alert or announcement (distraction effect).

- As we approach the 2004 elections, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing, to the point that they collapse in the graphic. At the same time, Bush ratings are lower than ever.

(See the comments on the article for a refutation of some of these "quite evident" points.)

In a seperate article, Julius documents the correlation of bad news for the administration with increases to the alert level. These articles put Tom Ridge's admission of clashes with others in the administration on the use of the alert level into some context. As Brewtown Politico says,

It looks like Ridge wants to let the world know he didn't appreciate being used as a political tool as head of Homeland Security.