Lieberman loses, CODE RED, CODE RED, CODE RED

UPDATE: I'm reading Ron Suskin's book, the "One Percent Doctrine," and highly recommend it. It's a look at the inside workings of the Bush administration and how they turned the war on terror into such a botched mess. Particularly interesting, and relevant to this post, is how at nearly every step Bush, not fully informed as to what's going on, and Cheney, fully informed but not caring about the truth, speak out publicly about some aspect of the war on terror and simply get the facts the horribly wrong. Typically, they overstate the case, and then the entire administration is forced to run around and scrounge up any evidence, no matter how slim or non-credible, to ex post facto "prove" that what Bush or Cheney just incorrectly sad is in fact true. Suskin does a great job of noting the various terror "threats" and/or "successes" that Bush and company lauded publicly, and which were simply nothing as serious as portrayed.

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No, really.

Bush just invoked a Code Red terrorist emergency, our first ever.

And isn't it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman's loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

And just at that moment we get our FIRST ever red alert. Beam me up, Scotty.



Do I sound as if I don't believe this alert? Why, yes, that would be correct. I just don't believe it. Read the article. They say the plot had an "Al Qaeda footprint." Ooh, are you scared yet? What that really means is that they found NO evidence whatsoever that the plot had anything to do at all with Al Qaeda, but the plot simply made them think "gosh, this is something Al Qaeda would do." That's what a footprint means. Nice, but no cigar.

Were these guys totally innocent? Probably not. But there's no reason to believe they were any more Osama's right-hand than Jose Padilla, the famed dirty-bomber who I think is now only being charged with jay-walking or something. Then there were the famous six Muslim-American guys in New York state, supposedly operating their own al Qaeda cell. Not so much. Or how about the Al Qaeda cell in Florida trying to blow up the Sears Tower? Oh that's right, they were just some demented friends squatting in a warehouse and "thinking" about it. And then there's the famous plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge - with a single blow torch.

Bottom line: Joe Lieberbush lost. The message is spreading across the land that incumbents who embrace the president are in serious trouble. And the Republicans needed to divert attention, to stop this meme in its tracks, and lo' and behold we have our first terror alert that I can recall since the last election, and it's our first ever Red Alert! What a coincidence!