More details about the latest terror video have come out in just the last hour, courtesy of Matt Drudge:

• The CIA and FBI have authenticated it as coming from al Qaeda.
• The video warns of retaliation if Americans reelect Bush, on a scale that “will make you forget all about September 11.”
• ABCNEWS, which acquired the tape from a source in Pakistan, has been informed of the government’s standing.
• Drudge’s source asserted, and ABC denies, that the network withheld the last 15 minutes of the tape from the FBI, including the Bush reelection threat.

It appears that al Qaeda’s goal is to disrupt American life as much as possible. So why haven’t they tried to kill President Bush?

In case you don’t remember this from civics class, the line of presidential succession goes like this: Vice President; House Speaker; Senate President pro tempore; Secretaries State, Treasury and Defense, Attorney General, and then all the remaining members of the cabinet. That means Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert, Ted Stevens, Colin Powell, John Snow, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft… not exactly the makings of a PLO fundraiser.

Suppose al Qaeda considers a suicide attack on Bush. What would it get them? A very angry President Dick Cheney. How do you suppose Cheney would react? Even al Qaeda isn’t that stupid.

But suppose the same thing happens to a President Kerry. Now John Edwards is the Commander in Chief and a world of possibilities starts to open up.

Given a Kerry White House, how far are we really from global policy controlled by terrorism?

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 28th, 2004 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.