Be sure to check out Slate's takedown of Dean's increasingly leftward tack. All I can say is, when a major party's front-runner muses publicly on paranoid conspiracy theories and attacks the party's moist successful living politician, it's a bad sign. It only get worse when, asked about mischaracterizations and (let's tell a hawk from a handsaw) lies spun by his campaign, he snaps that voters can either believe him "or they can believe the Washington Post." That's the Richard Pryor defense in action: "Who you gonna believe, me or your own lying eyes?"[1]



[1] Yes, in turn taken from a Chico Marx line.

 
Something I've meant to post is a link from MEMRI: the pro-Islamist British paper Al'Quds al'Arabi claims "Al-Qa'ida Preparing Big Operation to Coincide with Eid Al-Adha on Feb. 2, 2004 -New Bin Laden Tape will Explain Details."

The information coordinator for the Sahab Institute, which is associated with Al-Qa'ida, said that a new videotape of bin Laden will be circulated shortly before the holiday. He added in an interview with the Internet site Al-Anbaa [The News] that the videotape will surface in conjunction with 'a great event that will shake the region.' He refused to confirm or deny that he was in possession of a pre-taped videotape of bin Laden, and stated only that: 'When the event occurs it will be broadcast by Al-Jazeera television.'

Of course, this has taken on added relevance with today's elevation of the terror level.