Kerry steps in the al Qaqaa

Captain Ed has the links and the latest word about the 380 tons of of HMX and RDX supposedly looted from the Latifiyah Explosives and Ammunition Plant at al Qaqaa: not only did US forces investigate and secure the area, most of the material removed long before US troops arrived and the figure for the amount of HMX and RDX was probably off a bit, by a factor of 100. By January 2003 there were only 3 tons there. And have you noticed that in the hysterical charges, censorious reporting, and excited revelations , the TV talkers and politicians have not been naming the site?

It's the only miscalculation in a Rovian plot.

Can’t you just see Rove and Cheney snorting and guffawing, Rummy saying My Goodness, and Dubya smirking when they hatched this plan. In the last week of the campaign, let’s feed our most rabid media antagonists a misleading report suggesting a scandalous looting of WMDs by terrorists, then watch the story blow up and unravel.

If they rush into print, CBS and the NYT are revealed as the partisan trollops they are, and Kerry flip-flops to bellowing that WMD were there so he can bellow our line about terrorists getting the WMD. And the beauty of it is, even if they don’t fall into the trap, the whole country will be in a good mood from watching Kerry and Edwards and Rather saying “Qaqaa” over and over again. That last part was the only thing that didn't work.

One of the much discussed--but never executed--Hallowe'en pranks of my youth was to fill a paper bag with dog doo-doo, set it alight on the victim's porch, ring the bell, and watch from a safe distance as he fouled his shoes stomping out the fire. If Terry McAuliff thought the fake TANG documents were a Rove scam, why didn’t he smell a set-up at al Qaqaa?