No More "Orange You Glad" Terrorism Policy Puns

Bill Flanigen | July 15, 2009

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano—last seen worrying about a generation of disaffected right-wingers suffering from The Paul—is reportedly considering scrapping the post-9/11 color-coded warning system. For nearly eight years, it has kept the politically useful fear of terrorism at the front of our minds by informing us all whether the terrorist threat was a high tangerine, or merely an elevated school bus. (Remember the one time that it was red? Me neither.) Bloomberg:

The U.S. Homeland Security Department has appointed a task force to conduct a 60-day review of the nation’s color-coded terror-alert system.

The 17-member panel “made up of Democrats and Republicans, elected officials at the state and local level, security experts, law-enforcement officials and other professionals” will assess the system and suggest “any improvements that are needed,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

"My goal is simple: to have the most effective system in place to inform the American people about threats to our country,” she said in a statement posted today on the department’s Web site. 

No word yet on what might replace the color-coded warning system.

Back in the primeval darkness of 2004, Reason's Nick Gillespie ranted about the politicization of terror alerts. He also punned off of the chart here.