My favorite ABC quote, from the Drudge piece:

"This is not something you just throw out there while people are voting."

Hmmm. . . thrown out there, like, say, half-assed, poorly cited stories about missing explosives?

Or perhaps forged memos written in Microsoft Word?

IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE FUNNY? I DON'T GET IT.

Cheers,
Dave

DAMMIT ACE!!

Slow the eff down on updating your posts. You're stealing my thunder.

Be nice. I'm very sensitive right now.

Cheers,
Dave

OK, I can see the logic about not showing the whole video. I'm of two minds about it and I can understand where ABC would hesitate to throw an Al Qaeda threat into the middle of an election.

But why didn't they show it all to the CIA? Come on, maybe they've got some voice matching technology they can do or something. Why should ABC keep part of it secret from the CIA? What, will the CIA suddenly decide to vote for Bush?

I still can't stop laughing from that "the choice" video.

I wish Drudge could blast the last 15 minutes of that video on his site. Think the Daily Recycler can get a hold of it?

So now ABC follows CBS and NYT into the septic tank.

Here's a choice bit from today's WaPo:

“Ross and other ABC staffers say they believe that a Bush administration official leaked the story to Internet gossip Matt Drudge as a way of pressuring the network into airing the tape, which would heighten concerns about terrorism in the final week of the president's reelection campaign. They note that whoever gave the information to Drudge had a transcript of the tape.”

I too am having FITS over this over at my blog. I'm seriously at the point where it's got me so fired up I came >

Of course your "Armageddon" post below didn't help much either.

Heh.

See-Dub--

I tend to agree. A big part of me, the part that still believes/hopes for responsible media, would definitely want a video like this to be authenticated before the media ran with it.

For two reasons:
-- One, even bad publicity is still useful publicity. While I hate the MSM censorship of the more abhorrent facts of this war-- 9/11 imagery, Palestinian car swarms, etc.-- I don't want to see ABC News become Al Jazeera America, and run terrorist rants just because they're out there.

The bad guys have ranted about attacking us for a long time-- that's important for our intel folks to see, but unless there's something to it, I don't really care (To paraphrase C. Montgomery Burns: Oooh, Al Qaeda is made at me! Al Qaeda! Ooooh!!!)

-- Two, if we demand that the MSM hold itself to high standards reporting stories like the missing explosives and Rathergate stories, then to be only fair, we have to hold them to the same standards for stories like this.

From what we know, the speaker on the tape may be an American. What if ABC News immediately released the tape, and it turned out we all just got punked by Ashton Kutcher in a burka?

I don't 100% trust the CIA analysis of these sorts of things (For one, how can they keep hearing Bin Laden on tape, if Bin Laden is dead? What is, E.V.P., from beyond the grave? I keep waiting for Bin Laden to whisper "The house is mine. Get out. . . GET OUT!").

However, I certainly trust the CIA and FBI more than I trust some ABC intern pulled off of bulking tapes in order to authenticate the video based on her intimate knowledge of Middle East culture gleaned from Chomsky pamphlets and multiple-viewings of "Navy Seals."

Cheers,
Dave

Reverse psychology. al-Qaeda loves Bush because his policies piss off Muslims and throw them into their arms. So they make this video claiming that because Americans elected Bush, they're gonna get it even worse than they did on 9/11. This will push them towards Kerry, so they get even more volunteers under a second Bush administration.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

I know there is no evidence that there is any intellectual genius within the Al-Queda camps. But c'mon, be real. If they _really_ thought it would be a good idea to have John Kerry elected president, they would have to be the stupidest terrorists in the world to think that their endorsment would help accomplish that goal.

So lets say, for the sake of argument, that they _are_ the stupidest terrorists in the world... why the f#ck hasn't George Bush wiped them completely off the face of the earth by now?

Batman, I'd guess the terrorists are trying to split the difference. They know from the American public's vigorous support after 9/11 for preemptive warfare that an outright attack will galvanize our patriotic impulses.

They're test-driving a threat instead, hoping to raise our angst level -- so that enough of us pull the "give peace a chance" lever at the polling booth -- but without triggering the "Fuck you, bring it on!" that characterizes the American national psyche. They're probably also thinking some people will remember the DNC talking points and decide "Kerry's right - Bush really has made the world less safe."

Give ABC credit, they're smart enough to know the terrorists are miscalculating and the video will work in Bush's favor.

OK, but don't neglect the other issues. It looks like Ohio is clearly moving away from Bush on economic issues. 255,000 lost jobs and his tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, few who live in Ohio, to put money back in the local economy, means Bush will likely lose there.

As opposed to solid blue CT, where the richest 1% got 765,000 back in the last 4 years from money the Gov't borrowed from foreign countries - ostensibly called "tax cuts". CT's gold coast, as in California's, is rolling in Bush bucks - but will go Kerry.

Bush still has a shot on grounds that Kerry is so dislikable. He may take Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico to counter Ohio's loss.

Al-Queda must have loved Clinton too didn't they. They seemed to feel comfortable with attacking US interest all over the world without fearing any real consequences by a party who represents a "weak horse" in their mind. Al-Queda didn't have any recruitment problems under a Clinton presidency, so I think Bush being a motivator for terrorist is Bullshit. Any adversary would want to face the weakest counterpart they could, and they know in America, minus Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy, it's been and still is the democratic party. Johnson escalated a conflict, then when the issue heated up politically, rather than be a decisive leader he bailed out of running for re-election. Carter makes devastating cuts to our defense budget and similtaneously tells us and the world that we are no longer a superpower who can stand up to the Soviet Union and can only hope they will still bargain with us after all of the years of our confrontational posturing throughout the cold war. What a pathetic joker.

What is the specific source for the information that ABC cut a portion of the tape, and that that portion was a demand for Kerry's election?

You seem to have completely overlooked the fact that they could be endorsing Badnarik.

Badnarik's position on foreign intervention would be attractive to Al Quaida. He'd pull troops back rapidly (much like Kerry thinks he would, unless there's a nuance that would prevent him from doing so).

I'd wager that Badnarik was the farthest thing from Ben Laden's mind.

Mega Dittos!