What’s happened to Tom Ridge?

I always liked him. Liked his story: born poor, scholarship to Harvard, combat in Vietnam, Congress, governor, a good soldier who answered a post-Sept. 11 call to take an impossible job.

Met him in 1989. Covered him during his campaign for governor, his years in Harrisburg, Pa., and his current gig. Always thought he told the truth, or, for a politician, as close as he could get.

And, yeah, I’ve called him the National Scaremeister, the Secretary of Scare, made fun of his silly color code, his sillier duct tape, his “disaster supply kit” and his Liberty Shield. (Anyone even recall that?)

And while I think leadership on homeland security is bipolar — we’re safer/we’re not safe; attacks are likely/go about your life — I always thought well of Ridge. Always thought he’s someone who remembers where he came from and knows where his allegiance lies.

Until now. Now I wonder what’s happened to him.

Amid reports he wants out after November no matter who wins the election, two things make me wonder if he’s changed.

First, the timing of terror alerts raises questions that aren’t adequately answered.

If there’s no intent to benefit the president in a re-election year, Ridge should say more than “We don’t play politics” at the Department of Homeland Security.

Especially after doing a virtual campaign ad by announcing “new” threats just after the Democratic convention and praising “the president’s leadership in the war against terror.”

And it wasn’t said off the cuff or in answer to a question. It was said in prepared remarks.

It makes Ridge more salesman than guardian, more political servant than public servant.

Same with failing to divulge the full context of information on potential terror sites later revealed as three to four years old.

How does pushing the president while holding back the truth give anyone confidence in “We don’t play politics”?

Maybe he’s told what to say, when and how, and maybe that’s why he wants out. A source close to Ridge tells me the relationship between Ridge and the White House “isn’t what it used to be.” Still, it’s his gig.

Second is the salary thing.

The Associated Press quotes Ridge “colleagues” as saying Ridge wants to make more money to put his two teens through college. Who doesn’t?

But nobody making $175,700 a year should complain, even to “colleagues.” Not when the average White House salary is $67,075. Not when the average Washington area salary is $48,420. Not when the national median household income is $42,409.

For someone born into public housing, whose father worked two jobs to send him to Catholic schools, to whine about income so much higher than that of those he’s sworn to protect just isn’t right.

It doesn’t sound like Ridge. It sounds like someone too long in Washington.

And, look, I understand his worth on the open market. Good for him. I understand after service in Vietnam, Congress, the statehouse and the capital — especially in a job of unprecedented tensions — enough might be enough. So be it.

I even hear theories Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft or his ilk planted the salary stuff as payback. Ridge, you’ll recall, undercut Ashcroft’s May 26 warning of imminent attacks — at a time when things were especially bad for Bush in Iraq — by saying, yeah, well, we’re not raising the threat level.

(Here again, we’re supposed to believe this stuff is apolitical?)

But leadership on security is Ridge’s job. To date, that leadership is uninspired. It is fodder for late-night comics. It creates fear without direction. And it raises questions of politics.

Whatever happened to Tom Ridge, whether he’s been had or he’s just had it, is opportunity lost: for him, for government, for all of us.

John Baer is a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. His e-mail address is baerj@phillynews.com.