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Queue Up the Bogeymen, Boys

Contingency plans: The White House spins a backstory for claiming it "stopped" a terror attack

An interesting little contretemps played itself out on Drudge this morning. In one corner, the New York Times and Washington Post reported that Sunday's ballyhooed terror-plot warning was in fact based on seized documents written three or four years ago. Opposite them, Newsday and the LA Times touted claims that "U.S. authorities" insist the plot remains a going concern.

The dust-up gives every sign of being Bush administration stagecraft in the same spirit as their tales of Saddam's WMD. Even before the disclosure that the evidence in question was old, New York's financial district seemed an odd choice of targets: too much like the first attack, and largely superfluous in the sense that any major attack in the U.S. would play hell with the financial markets. It sounded like more desperate hype from the White House--doubly so when it was announced that the documents seized were several years old, and doubly so again when the administration began insisting it only looked like old news.

What's at stake here is not just another campaign-season elevation of the terror alert level. If the president's men succeed in convincing the public that the alleged plot was still in the works, and no such attack occurs before the election, they will be in a position to proclaim in the waning days of the campaign that W et al.--yes!--foiled a terrorist attack in the United States. 

Naturally this will only matter in the event that there is not a real attack before November 2. Think of it as the unloaded gun mounted over the fireplace in the first act--in case no one shows up with a real one by play's end.

Posted by Steve Perry at August 3, 2004 5:27 PM

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