The Cave Man Speaks

I began noticing in recent months that administration officials were taking credit for the lack of another terrorist attack on America since 9/11.

This, I thought, was risky business, since no matter how much security is beefed up, no many how many terrorists are investigated, there is no way in an open society to block every conceivable attack. And if administration officials want to boast that their policies have kept America safe, are they willing to accept the blame if another attack takes place?

Cheney was at it again yesterday, calling the safety record "no accident." Maybe. Maybe the administration's efforts have contributed to the four-year lull, or maybe we've been lucky, or some combination thereof.

Another one of those Osama tapes surfaced on al-Jazeera yesterday, as you undoubtedly know, and from his undisclosed cave he claimed that there have been no attacks because al-Qaeda is still making preparations. This may be little more than bluster, since the terrorist organization has obviously suffered serious damage. And bin Laden is a master media manipulator; remember when he put out a tape just before the Bush-Kerry election?

But after the bombings in London and Madrid, not to mention the al-Qaeda efforts in Iraq, who can really say there won't be another attack on U.S. soil?

No matter what the question yesterday, Scott McClellan kept saying we have the terrorists "on the run." I hope he's right and that "on the run" doesn't turn out to be like Dick Cheney's "last throes" in Iraq. Because political bluster isn't going to win this war on terror.

"Al-Jazeera today aired an audiotape from Osama bin Laden in which he makes fresh threats against the United States but also offers a long-term truce if unspecified 'just' conditions are met," says the Los Angeles Times. "The White House said the intelligence community was analyzing the data and said the U.S. would never shrink from pursuing terrorists who attacked the country on Sept. 11, 2001."

Osama reads the polls: "The statement noted that American opinion polls had shown the nation's desire to withdraw its troops from Iraq and its feeling that it is better that Americans 'don't fight Muslims on their lands and that they don't fight us on ours,' " says the New York Times.

Al-Jazeera said the tape was made last month, and "American intelligence and counterterrorism officials speculated that Al Qaeda leaders had kept the recording on the shelf, timing its release for maximum propaganda value," says the Chicago Tribune.

The New York Post 's banner is "DROP DEAD," and inside: "BUSH: NUTS TO OSAMA'S WHEEZING, WHINING BID FOR A TRUCE."

We hope that's clear.

Now for some Beltway politics. The New Republic's Ryan Lizza is, ah, blunt about the acting House majority leader: