I don't know if I'll jump in this fest, eh, what the hell, I guess.
I'll tackle the vacation first:
One viewpoint could be that:
The fact that they were on vacation that was some possible miscommunication occured between the intelligence officials and the executive offices of when this takedown was going to occur and caught Tony, George, and the crews off guard.
Or another (one, that as of now, I find the most plausible) that the SY was keeping Blair and his right-hand men abreast of the situation everyday or so; and SY let him know that the takedown was imminent (but they don't have to get his explicit approval to go in and make the arrests, do they ?!) and he figured that they [intelligence departments for each state] 'll take care of it and if he needs to come back to the home office early and make a press conference or two, and some meetings, he will. (Same goes for George).
I assume that both offices have contigency plans ready (although I definitely acknowledge that they are NOT foolproof) in case something like this happens; and have a general guidelines of things to do.
As for the Terror Alerts,
I think its purpose is to give the public the notion that the government is doing something about it.
(The intelligence agencies realize that the public wouldnt be happy in either case: one case being the overt security measures that are now in place, and the other being that if they did not take another action and in the possible, but not probable, some other terrorist event happened, the entire public would demand for the resignations of Blairs, bush, and the intelligence departments for not stopping things.
(I understand why the terror alerts exist, although I personally do not agree that they are the best and most appropriate actions to take.)
As for this attack's effects on the political landscape, I think both of the American political parties use whatever news that they can get ahold of to support their points.
[To be honest, I feel resigned from participating in this thread since not much substantial dialogue has occured yet, but I'll contribute my brief thoughts.
As for the poll question, Host, I'm having trouble understanding what 'genuine' means in this context, if you could explain a bit more, I'll understand the question and make a response
regards,
keyshawn