Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- You would think the suspects arrested in the U.K. yesterday were geniuses -- plotting to blow up airliners over the Atlantic. Who would have thought of such a thing?

I would have, but that's because I waste so many hours watching Jack Bauer foil various terrorist plots on the television program ``24.'' What I never thought to do was to go to the ``Contact Us'' button at the top of the Homeland Security Department Web site and alert them to the potential danger posed by every cup of Starbucks and bottle of shampoo passing through security.

Now that I know they don't defend against anything not specifically relayed from intelligence sources, I'm going to warn them that talcum powder may be a problem. I saw that on ``Alias.''

Although a lamer agency has never existed, that didn't stop Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from taking a bow for uncovering a plot the U.S. had almost nothing to do with. There he was crowing on live TV and on the Web site about how much safer the country was because of the arrests.

More alarming was that elsewhere on the Web site it was obvious that very little progress has been made at Homeland Security on preparing the citizenry for another terrorist attack.

You might think that former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge's color-coded warnings and advice to use duct tape and plastic sheeting were relics of a rocky start-up for the department. You would be wrong. They are still the items of choice should there be another terrorist attack.

Safe Ice Cream Stands

There's still no plan for where to go or an evacuation program should the unimaginable occur. Meanwhile, the department is diverting funds from New York and Washington to protect ice- cream stands and puppet shows in the heartland.

As quick as Chertoff was to take credit for the bust, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was quicker to use it prospectively in a press conference the day before.

It seemed odd that the inscrutable vice president would take time from his vacation in Jackson, Wyoming, to talk to reporters. Most days, Cheney would rather have a root canal than consort with the press. I chalked it up to Cheney's general desire to scare the pants off the public every chance he gets while suggesting only the Republicans have the fix. Then there was the minor opportunity to accuse Democrats of a pre-Sept. 11 ``mentality'' as demonstrated by Senator Joseph Lieberman's primary defeat in Connecticut a day earlier.

Wound Up

Cheney was quite wound up after Lieberman's loss. ``The thing that's partly disturbing about it is the fact that our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al-Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task,'' he said.

Lieberman was ``pushed aside,'' Cheney went on, ``because of his willingness to support an aggressive posture'' on terror.

That's quite a stretch even for a vice president in charge of mushroom clouds, nuclear threats, and yellowcake uranium. Spinning a primary in a small, moderate New England state into a story line that Democrats aren't to be trusted with national security is in the job description of low-level operatives.

Then it all became perfectly clear. The U.S. had been kept apprised by the Brits that arrests were about to occur. The vice president knew that hours after his remarks there would be wall- to-wall coverage of the plan to blow up as many as 10 airliners with explosive cocktails composed of a Gatorade-like liquid detonated by an MP3 player or cell phone.

Go Orange, Go Republican

Surely no Democratic administration could be trusted to get to the bottom of that. Well, no Republican one could either, if that's the game we're playing. It was the British who uncovered this one, with help from Pakistani intelligence.

There's no longer any reason for Cheney to believe that the terror alert going to orange means the country will go Republican.

In a survey published this month of 100 foreign policy experts, retired military officers, veteran intelligence officers, former secretaries of state and national security advisers there was a striking consensus across political lines. A bipartisan majority, 84 percent, say the U.S. is not winning the war on terror, and 86 percent see a world growing more dangerous. The U.S., they agree, is falling short in its homeland security efforts, according to the survey, which was conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the magazine Foreign Policy.

Against all that, Cheney is hoping he can sell the theory that Lieberman didn't lose because he's too close to a president who has further imperiled us. He also hopes the elections later this year don't turn on the question posed by Democrats, ``Do you feel safer than you did five years ago?''

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 11, 2006 05:37 EDT