Election Year

I guess Orange Alerts aren't working any more, so we're foiling plots.

They said the plot was still in the planning stage and that those involved had not done any reconnaissance or obtained weapons. An FBI official said none of the suspects had ever been in the United States. . . .

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security called the plotters a "terrorist network," and Lebanese officials said the suspect in custody there had confessed, calling himself the mastermind of the plot and pledging allegiance to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

"We believe we have what I'll call eight principal players and that we have them largely identified," Mershon said, adding that the suspects were on three continents. He declined to disclose the nationalities of the suspects.

"We don't have charges pending in the U.S. so there certainly will be no extradition," he said.

So, let's see -- so far, it's all talk on a chat room, the conspirators are on three continents (but not here), and the mastermind is planning to travel to Pakistan (our good friend and ally in the WOT?) for training.

Y'know, at least the "terrorists" in Miami were in this country.

And there are no charges pending. Again.

This has to be playing to the base, because they are the only ones I can think of who are going to look at announcements like this uncritically. For anyone else, it's really damaging to our perception of the competence of our government for it to be crowing about "foiling" plots that barely exist at all outside of someone's imagination (and I'm not sure that "someone" is limited to the plotters). We might as well be raiding schoolboys' treehouses.