Thinking that your candidate will get a huge advantage by killing Americans makes you really patriotic! That is why Bush won in 2004.

Sick fucking bastard!

McCain strategist Charlie Black then went on to say if such an attack happened sometime in mid-October and "came as a big surprise to everyone" that this would be particularly advantageous for his candidate.

@ 1 - not really. If Black is hoping for a terrorist attack in order to boost McCain's campaign, that is clearly fucked in the head. Claiming that, as a factual matter, a terrorist attack will boost McCain's campaign is not. Just because someone acknowledges a shitty reality doesn't necessarily mean one they're advocating for that shitty reality.

The key line in the article is that the interviewer asked the question whether it would be advantageous. Whatever his other sins, Charlie Black merely answered honestly. No news here. People across the spectrum have ideas about what an October surprise could mean.

Obama could argue the same point the other way. Another attack could be interpreted as proving that the Bush administration failed to protect against another attack, and that the neocon strategy for defending the country (preemptive attack) is responsible.

A more damaging October surprise would be the confirmed death of Bin Laden by suddenly producing his well preserved body. Of course the right wing will claim that Democrats don't want Bin Laden captured because it would help the Republicans.

The Saudis secretly ordered Bush et al to avoid catching Osama years ago, because he's popular inside Saudi Arabia and it would be tremendously destabilizing to their rule.

I wish MarkyMark wasn't correct.

If the Saudis want Bin Laden kept alive, than why isn't he in prison? He's even more dangerous to them free and alive. He hates them. Besides, if an Obama aide said he would benefit from a terrorist attack, the R's would be shittin' all over them for wishing for an attack. This creates a puzzle. I think Bin Laden didn't much understand American politics. The politics of power and the power of politics. If he's paying attention now, and you must assume he is, he might think McCain would be preferable. McCain would be just as hated the world over as Bush.

I've never thought fuckwad had any real interest in catching ObL. He's much more valuable as a bogeyman to tighten the sphincters of the average American simpleton and prevent any large-scale backlash against the U.S.'s ongoing manipulations all over the Middle East. Without ObL the spectre of terrorism would become much more nebulous and people would get bored.