Giving them what they want...

No, no, no...

Charlie Black saying that a terrorist attack would help McCain has to based on some fairly complicated logic or a lack of integrity.

If there is a terrorist attack on this country won't it show that after all these years of grandmothers being frisked and illegal phone taps and putting panties on the heads of Islamic men we are not safe from terrorism?

We have had red alerts and orange alerts, we have had the administration telling us about this or that planned terrorist attack being foiled, attacks about which they were not free to elaborate for national security reasons. If there is no attack then McCain can say, "Hey, it's working, that's why I want to continue what Mr. Bush has started." So, if there is an attack he can say that we need to stay the course?

Seems to me that another attack shows the bankruptcy of the "war" metaphor, the proponents of which try to humiliate anyone who says it's a law enforcement problem (like the fist World Trade Center bombing--the perpetrators of which are where, now? Oh, yeah, in prison.)

Not that an attack would not work that way. It has worked like a charm in the Middle East. All the extremists know that any time a settlement is imminent all they have to do is attack one side, or the other, and the victim will throw over the settlement table--in fear of its own people who demand revenge and whose war mongers will say that they were right, that "going soft" invited the other side to attack them while pretending to be talking peace.

It even keeps the violence going when the "fundamentalist" Jewish guy kills the Jewish peacemaker--because it replaces Israel's peace guy with Israel's non-peace guy.

So, yeah, it probably would help McCain if there were another terrorist attack. It just shows that most of the American people don't get what's going on, here. If you think that winning a "war" against the United States is in your interest then do what is necessary to make sure that the people who want to fight you get or stay in office. To not attack makes the people who want to make peace with you stronger. And if you (we) are manipulated this way we end up giving up on peace and giving the people who thrive on this nonsense what they need to keep going.

Peace is in the interest of neither Al Qaeda or John McCain's election.