Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation:
The Post today reports that Al Qaeda has endorsed John McCain for president. With seemingly impeccable logic, the cave dwellers — actually, more likely, Quetta-squatters — say that by electing McCain, the United States will commit itself to an extension of President Bush’s blunders and thus exhaust itself militarily and financially.
Of course, Al Qaeda says that the way it can assist McCain is through a terrorist act that will rally Americans to his side.
Saying that McCain will continue the “failing march of his predecessor,” Al Qaeda added:
“Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election. … [We] will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America.”
The quotes came from an AQ-linked website called al-Hesbah and were written by Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the site.
Conspiracy theorists, along with pessimists and Cassandras on the left, will no doubt see in those words an imminent fatal blow to the Obama campaign in the form of a looming attack that would shift the electoral dynamic. I wouldn’t worry. If the cave-dwellers and Quetta-squatters could attack the United States, they would have done it by now. I suppose its remotely possible that Al Qaeda types might blow something up, but there isn’t a chance in the world that in the next two weeks they can do anything that could shift the election. In fact, by stepping up attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda does indeed have some actual ability to kill people, the organization will only add to Obama’s arguments that the Bush-McCain policies have failed.