Save Those Stamps

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff pleads with New Yorkers to stop sending him postcards:

. . . [C]ontrary to news media reports, significant landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge were included in our deliberation over where money would go. It is true that they were not classified as national monuments and icons. Why? To help New York’s application.

We purposely placed these structures into other categories: the Empire State Building into the large office building category and the Brooklyn Bridge into the bridges category. We did so because those categories generate a higher complete risk grade for New York’s financing proposal than icons like Mount Rushmore that, while important symbolically, would have fewer human and economic consequences in case of an attack.