If this is genuine, this needs to be downplayed by the Bush administration in the worst way (as they seem to be doing). In order to get Americans to swallow many bitter pills (warrantless surveillance, Real ID, travel restrictions, et cetera, ad nauseum), you have to get them first to accept the premise that the administration is making them safer.
The 20% who still mindlessly support this administration use, as their final dwindling rationalism, that there has not been any appreciable terrorism on American soil after 9-11 (the anthrax mailings have been, conveniently, forgetten). Therefore, authoritarianism must work, all hail CheneyCo! (This is, incidentally, the same reason I keep my anti-zombie rock in my pocket… I’ve never been attacked by a zombie as long as I’ve carried it on my person.)
If a single terror attack (genuine or not) were to happen on Bush’s watch even after eight years of what amounts to a blank cheque when it comes to domestic security policy, then his record will be one of complete and absolute failure. His economic policies have demonstrably failed (the US dollar has lost value to every major currency and most brands of toilet tissue and even tweaking the numbers does not soften the unemployment figures to a comfortable degree), his military ventures have demonstrably failed (five years later, we’re still waiting for “mission accomplished” in Afghanistan and Iraq), his foreign policies have demonstrably failed (there is more anti-US sentiment in the world than has ever existed previously), his emergency management policies have demonstrably failed (New Orleans has still not been rebuilt after Katrina in 1995, and Southern Californians can attest after last summer’s wildfires that FEMA has not come close to getting their act together in the interim), if he had a coherent immigration policy it would probably also fail… as a matter of fact, the only thing that they can point to as approaching effective governance is the fact that hordes of terrorists have not seen blowing people up in largely populated urban centers.
A bombing of this nature coming, as it does, this close to the general election can backfire on the neocon movement (if one assumes that fear was the motivation). The opposition (if you want to call them that) face a single criticism: that they are “soft on terror”. All it takes to defuse that criticism is to demonstrate that the Republican response does not work. People are already fear-fatigued, and if this is another ratchet towards the neocon wet dream of martial law, they have missed their window.

Posted by: Monolycus | Mar 7 2008 3:52 utc | 4

Call out the B-52’s. Carpet bomb Manhatten. There’s terrorists down there. Never mind collateral damage.

Posted by: Allen/Vancouver | Mar 7 2008 5:08 utc | 6

good point Allen. a few Tomahawk missiles from offshore may well get the perp. why not take the shot? what’s good enough for Somalia is good enough for New York after all.

Posted by: ran | Mar 7 2008 5:13 utc | 8

Harry Hutton weighs in with an erudite discussion of the opportunity costs of the “GWOT” that makes Foreign Affairs instantly (more) obsolete.

Posted by: ran | Mar 7 2008 6:52 utc | 10

I pulled that “smart alec” comment @ #1 out of my ass, I’m as puzzled as you are that I mentioned the 70’s radical group as I hadn’t thought of it or them, nor has it even been in the periphery of my conscience in a pretty damn good while.
But I do smell some rotten fish in the air, because, the smell of the dark side plot occurring maybe highly speculative, or some diabolical long term thought out ahead of time ju ju is being laid. If you grep wot I’m sayin’…
Obama’s ‘Weatherman’ Connection
*shrugs* or not. Either way, these are some pretty serious ligations or maybe allegations, no? Even for these political vampires.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 7 2008 8:43 utc | 12

Not very relevant as compared to, quote unquote, Obama is a Muslim, Obama is very black, O’s wife belongs to the CFR, he was involved in some shady loan on his house, and I don’t know what all.
The ‘terrorist’ tar-brush is the least likely to stick or impact, for the simple reason that there are no terrorists in the US, to speak of, I mean (some nutters may dream of bombs, etc.), everybody knows it, the wars on terror are fought abroad and far away, terrorists are not a US problem, certainly the elites are exempt, the whole concept is ridiculous, self defeating, dangerous. (See also Monocyclus at the top.) Associating Obama with ‘terrorism’ drives a stake through US values and shows unequivocally that desperate smears are being floated.
The Dems are shooting themselves in the foot again, whether accidentally or on purpose or somewhere in between I can’t say. Every single argument against Obama and Hill made by them, they themselves! (their advisors, groupies, etc.) will be spewed out by the Republicans come election time. Obama and Hill are writing the Repug. script without being paid for it (as far as we know.)
Such monumental stupidity is incomprehensible from the EU. Mind you, France, the most-US like (Republic not a parliamentary social-democracy, rough…) had the same triangulation in the last elections (two left or center left candidates vs. one from the standard right) and the oppo failed..
If Sego (Segolene Royal, socialist) and Francois Bayrou (center with left or at least traditional leanings to State Corporatism in the French way) could have gotten together, they would have beat Sark the First (Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa) easily, but it didn’t happen. Some stab at a coalition was made late, too late, by Sego, when it became apparent she could not win alone with her own party, or, more accurately, measured the effects of not being wholly supported by her own party. Bayrou refused the deal, didn’t even show up for the appointment. A similar situation seems to be playing out in the US.
one ex, WaPo

Posted by: Tangerine | Mar 7 2008 18:19 utc | 14

gus –
I’ve wondered this myself and so has Bob Herbert in the NYT, more or less.

…
Said Mr. Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself … By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.”
…

OBL himself stated this was his plan.
The notion of a bankrupt USA seems to be a taboo subject.

Posted by: Hamburger | Mar 8 2008 16:58 utc | 16