DID THE GOP PUT THE FEAR CARD BACK IN THE DECK?
(Or one fear card, at least?)

Yeah, this is kinda odd -- I noticed this morning that Al Qaeda just released a new video message featuring #2 guy Ayman al-Zawahri, and, as NBC's Jim Popkin notes, nobody's talking about it:

What if the al-Qaida deputy spoke, and nobody listened? That's essentially what happened today when the propaganda division of the terrorist group released its latest video--complete with a major new speech by the al-Qaida deputy, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri--celebrating the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.

Al-Qaida released the new 90-minute tape to the Al Jazeera television network, played select portions of it throughout the day. But the tape has received scant attention in the United States, especially compared to recent 9-11 anniversaries....

What's new is that, in an election year, no Republican is yelling FEAR FEAR FEAR and drawing attention to this video. In the past, in the autumn of an even-numbered year, the Bush administration would have been all over the press, arm-twisting until the video was widely discussed.

But maybe that was just a peculiar, never-to-be-repeated technique of the Bushies: to simultaneously boast about how safe our Republican daddies have made us and periodically draw attention to how unsafe we are, in each case with reference to the same enemy. It's a difficult trick shot, doing both at the same time and gaining political strength from both messages at once. Give the sleazy bastards credit -- they pulled it off.

I guess now the Bushies don't care whether they scare us -- and McCain's people want you to be so mesmerized by Sarah Palin's cute little cheekbones that you'll never even think about Al Qaeda or Iraq, which McCain knows are loser issues.

So, sorry, Osama and Ayman -- nobody wants to try scoring political points off your videos, so no one in America is paying any attention.