Campaigns Wary About October Surprise

Makoto916 writes "CNN.com has an article on how both campaigns are speculating on what the so called "October Surprise" is going to be. From the capture of Bin Laden, to the economy falling through the floor, just about everything is considered. "

Comments

Didn't you know?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the capture of Bin Laden, to the economy falling through the floor, just about everything is considered.

They've already caught Bin Laden, they've just been holding him in secret so they could announce his 'sudden capture' a week before the elections.
/tinfoilmode

Seriously though, when Saddam got picked up a year ago I was surprised that they didn't actually try this using him. I guess they needed to announce a victory at that point in the war, despite a boogeyman on the loose being better for controlling the populace than one in jail. Speaking of which, we havn't heard a word about him since his capture, maybe the show trial starts just in time for the election?

Re:Didn't you know?

[dasunt]

I'm not paranoid enough to believe that the US gov't is holding Mr. bin Laden at an undisclosed location, waiting for the right moment.

OTOH, I would have no problem in believing that the amount of forces dedicated to his capture has been stepped up in the last few weeks.

Re:Didn't you know?

[Rayonic]

I find it impossible to believe that the we could capture Osama Bin Laden and keep it a secret for very long at all. News that big would definitely leak out.

I mean, I'm sure they've ramped up their efforts to capture the guy, but I'm not sure that it'd be politically expedient anyway. I mean, the Democrats have put forward so much (baseless) suspicion that, upon capture, many people might believe Bush was hiding Osama for later. Heck, some people thought that we were hiding Saddam in his little spider-hole.

My personal hypothesis: Osama is dead. He hasn't starred in any videos (it's always his "second in command"). Al-Qaeda just wants everyone to think he's alive, for morale purposes. We haven't found him yet because it's hard to find someone who doesn't have to eat, drink, breathe, or be guarded -- he could be buried anywhere.

Re:Didn't you know?

[Anonymous Coward]

> My personal hypothesis: Osama is dead. He hasn't
> starred in any videos

Actually, I think part of the reason for this is that:

1) the CIA constantly analyses the videos (and audios) for signs of where they were shot. The next time you watch a movie, try to figure out where it's actually shot (instead of where they movie producers want you to think it's shot). If you put any care into analysing what in the audio and video of the movie (and what's missing), you'd at least be able to get a very good idea where it could be shot.

2) Osama is *tall*. He sticks out like a sore thumb in an arab crowd. He'd be easily found, even if he had plastic surgery.

These two facts conspire against Osama. If the CIA can get an approximate idea where Osama is (through his broadcasts), catching him will only be a matter of time. Osama knows this, so he's letting his second in command (who blends into an arab crowd easily) do his dirty work.

Osama is a no dummy. I wouldn't be surprised if Osama is in the last place you'd expect him. For all we know he's hiding in plain sight. He could be "working" in New York as a taxi driver. Yes it is far fetched, but you have to admit that it an inocious way of talking to operatives who act as passengers.

Re:Didn't you know?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

Osama bin Laden, contrary to rumor, never made it out of Tora Bora. I had the chance to interview some of the SF soldiers who were there --there were about two dozen of them. Everything that moved got bombed. Everything that had a heat signature got bombed. Everything that set off the interferometers got bombed. Everything that didn't move or have a heat signature or set off the interferometers got bombed. The area was enclosed with a hard perimeter, meaning that some human being somewhere had real-time eyeballs on every square foot of that perimeter during the entire operation, either from the ground or from the air via loitering aircraft or Predators. Nobody got out.

When the troops went in to clear the caves, they didn't find bodies. They didn't even find pieces of bodies. They found fragments. A piece of jawbone with a molar in it, a fingertip, a scrap of skin with some hair attached. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying.

The idea that Osama bin Laden and his cadre just slipped out the back door with a vehicle and enough supplies to get them out of the mountains and into Pakistan is laughable in the extreme.

Why does the administration not mention this? Well, they have, indirectly, but why not come right out and say so? The reason there wasn't a screaming press release and banner headlines the next day is that we have no DNA from Osama bin Laden so there's no way for us to positively identify any of the human remains recovered as being from him. Even if we ruled out all the remains recovered, that still wouldn't be conclusive because lots and lots of men were essentially pulverized during the bombing, leaving nothing large enough to recover.

So because we can't conclusively prove that we got him, we have to concede the possibility that he might have clicked his heels together and said "there's no place like Islamabad." It's im-fucking-possible ...but it's still possible. You know what I mean?

So instead we go with indirect evidence. Has Osama bin Laden been seen since December 2001? No. Has he been heard? No. (There were some audiotapes. Some were obviously older than 12/01. Some were recorded by persons other than bin Laden. None were both contemporaneous and genuine.) Has he communicated in any way that we could intercept? No, and we can intercept anything from smoke signals to a whisper in a Jakarta nightclub. Has he given any orders, participated in any summits, done --in short --any of the things he did regularly prior to 12/01? No.

He has, in other words, disappeared from the face of the earth. For nearly three years. Which, if you know about bin Laden's personality, is something that he would have a very hard time accomplishing if he were still corporeal and animate.

Osama bin Laden is dead.

Re:Didn't you know?

[RWerp]

Seriously though, when Saddam got picked up a year ago I was surprised that they didn't actually try this using him. I guess they needed to announce a victory at that point in the war, despite a boogeyman on the loose being better for controlling the populace than one in jail.

Quite the opposite. Saddam in jail, humiliated and weak, is better for the USA. Arabs don't cheer losers.

Re:Didn't you know?

[sg3000]

> Osama bin Laden is dead.

What's scary is that Osama bin Laden has the capability to speak to us from the dead!

Because Colin Powell told a senate panel in 2003 that Osama bin Laden was still alive, and the hunt for him continues, although Bush has outsourced the search effort to Pakistan for some reason.

The fact is on September 17, 2001, Bush told the American people "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West, I recall, that says, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive.'" [Source: ABC News, Sept 17, 2001]

In March of 2003, Bush significantly reversed this position, saying, "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care. It's not that important." [referenced in the Boston Globe, 6/5/2004]

Since then, Bush worked to forget Osama bin Laden, or at least get the American people to. As was reported in the Washington Post on Aug 12, 2004, since the beginning of 2003, Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden's name on only 10 occasions, but not at any length. In contrast, he mentioned Saddam Hussein's name on more then 300 occasions.

In fact, during the first Presidential debate. Kerry talked directly about Osama bin Laden, which forced Bush to finally do so.

===================
BUSH: Never...when I was running -- when we had the debate in 2000, never dreamt I'd be doing that.

But the enemy attacked us, Jim ...

KERRY: Jim, the president just said something extraordinarily revealing and frankly very important in this debate. In answer to your question about Iraq and sending people into Iraq, he just said, "The enemy attacked us."

Saddam Hussein didn't attack us. Osama bin Laden attacked us.
===================

Clearly, Bush's scheme of trying to get the public to forget about Osama bin Laden who attacked us on 9/11 unraveled during the debate.

As for an October surprise, if Bush has avoided capturing Osama bin Laden in order to score political points just before the election, then I can think of nothing more despicable. That would be politicizing the 9/11 attacks in a way that I think even Bush is incapable of.

Re:Didn't you know?

[DrSkwid]

There's no need to capture your employees.

What would really be a surprise

[KilobyteKnight]

What would surprise me is if Bush and Kerry jointly announced that they have both been living a lie, and are both gay lovers. Also, there'd have to be a male intern coming forward claiming sexual harassment.

Anything else would not be a surprise.

Definitely

[vijaya_chandra]

From the capture of Bin Laden, to the economy falling through the floor, just about everything is considered.

Ms.Benajir Bhutto, the ex-PM of Pakistan had already claimed that Laden's hiding in the house of the president of Pakistan.
So the first surprise mentioned is definitely going to be true.

The second!! It can't be true. My personal fortune teller says my earnings from the stocks I hold'd be atleast 2 millions in the next 3-4 months. Now that is a real reason why it can't be true

Re:Definitely

[Anonymous Coward]

The Spanish don't like being told lies by their government. The Americans (at least those from the USA) seem to love it.

Re:Definitely

[xlv]

Americans, unlike the Spaniards, it seems, don't like being told how to vote by terrorists.

Some facts about the Spanish election: it was a close race before the attack, due in part of the opposition to the war from the Spanish people and thus opposed to the government being part of the coalition and the most important fact and probably decisive factor: the government lied and blamed it right away on ETA, the Basque separatist group, which has blood on its hands but was never involved in such a terrorist attack targetting random civilians.

So the US interpretation that this is just Spaniards caving in to terrorists is wrong and is just another example of how you don't get the rest of the world and this is in part due to the US media not doing a good enough job going past he sound bites.

Unforeseen Media Gaffe Amplification

[4of12]

Since image and perception on TV play such an important role in influencing many voters, the kinds of events extend beyond the economic and geopolitical.

An unguarded, unrehearsed moment, caught in the wrong light, for any candidate can be fatal to their chances for election.

Professional, well-trained actors stand the best chances under that kind of scrutiny.

Re:Unforeseen Media Gaffe Amplification

[WCityMike]

Professional, well-trained actors stand the best chances under that kind of scrutiny.

Do you mean that arnie should have been a presidential candidate!?!

No, read what he said again: professional, well-trained actors stand the best chances under that kind of scrutiny.

terrorist swing voters?

[AdamBa]

Half-amusing, half-scary piece from kausfiles (from back in June), speculating that different groups of terrorists might favor different candidates: Quote: "The prospect ahead of us might not be just competing ad campaigns for the U.S. presidency but competing terror campaigns for the U.S. presidency, with anti-Bush bombs going off in Baghdad and pro-Bush bombs going off in New York."

- adam

No telling what it'll be...

[Jim Starx]

But I bet it'll be a new low in dirty politics.

Bush - gone?

[rueger]

Ah heck - if we're talking consiracy theories, try this.

What happenes to the election of a terrorist attack takes out George W? Do you still go to the polls? Do you get Cheney by defualt? And how long could he delay the election before going foward?

And does anyone think that he hasn't already considered the possibility and planned for it?

Re:Bush - gone?

[Twirlip of the Mists]

What happenes to the election of a terrorist attack takes out George W?

That's not so much a conspiracy theory as it is high school civics class.

If the president dies -- including by assassination -- the vice president succeeds him. That's been a part of the system since day one, and it's been put to the test too many times.

The election is a separate question. If a presidential candidate dies after the nominating convention but before the election, that candidate's name remains on the ballot. If that candidate --now deceased --wins the election, the 20th amendment kicks in, which says that the vice president elect becomes president if the president elect dies before the inauguration.

This is also true if the president elect dies after winning the election but before being inaugurated.

And does anyone think that he hasn't already considered the possibility and planned for it?

Yes, it certainly has been ...by the framers of the Constitution of the United States and by the authors of the 20th amendment which went into effect in 1933, and also by the authors of the Presidential Succession Act of 1947.

Re:Bush - gone?

[Jesrad]

When Robert Kennedy was shot months before the 68 elections, the Dems scrambled to get another candidate (Humphrey) on the line, while the Reps launched a "Law and order" campaign that led their candidate (Nixon) to the White House with only an 0.7% advantage in the popular vote.

So my own guess for the October Surprise 2004 is that Kerry gets shot, Bush gets re-appointed, SNAFU all over.

That's actually true, though.

[Nomihn0]

I would not rule that out.

I've considered this myself and I know many others have as well - without any outside impetus. During the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, many people speculated as to how the terrorist threat would play out. Terrorists want Bush in power. The reason for this is so simple that liberals and conservatives can agree. Every time that Bush attacks or threatens a predominantly Islamic country, extremists develop in the populations.

Bush's assault Afghanistan on generated massive "collateral damage" - that is, holes in civilians caused by US' guns. To some people, a 3/4 dead village can be a bit upsetting. It's no surprise that these people then rebel against the United States. They realize that Osama Bin Laden is leading the fight and join his rag-tag clan of militant jihadists.

Bush's invasion of Iraq has directly caused over 13,000 civilian deaths. If this is not enough to agitate a population into extremism, I do not know what is. Am I supposed to believe that "liberation" includes "the freedom of body from soul"? Iraqis have read US history, they know that when we crash a party we never leave. Seeing this trend, they fear an extended US led occupation in their own country. The result is a rebellion against the invader. This can manifest itself in many ways: roadside bombs, mortar attacks, and both domestic and overseas terrorism. Osama Bin Laden becomes their patron saint.

Osama Bin Laden wants Bush because Osama Bin Laden does not value human life. He does not care how many innocent deaths it takes to bring the ideals of radical Islam to the world. If Bush incites a World War in the Middle East, Bin Laden would exalt him. Osama's goal is to incite a religious war against western "infidels" and their tainted culture. These wars are giant recruiting posters for Bin Ladne.

If Bin Laden could vote in the US, he would vote Bush.

Re:That's actually true, though.

[rosie_bhjp]

Yes because Israel has proved that killing a movement's leaders is so effective at nullifying the movement.

Oh wait...

Re:That's actually true, though.

[NiceGeek]

Except that they don't care if they die. The goal is what is important and Bush is helping them accomplish it.

Re:That's actually true, though.

[IndependentVik]

Many of these terrorist leaders would welcome martyrdom in exchange for having their movements grow by the thousands. Perhaps before calling people who disagree with you fools, you should try and understand the culture of the enemy. These are not rational people, and fundamentalists of any stripe do not always follow their own logical self-interests.

Incidentally, while some leaders might be dying, I'd venture to say that Islamic Fundamentalism as a movement has only grown stronger during Bush's "war on terror". Anti-American sentiment worldwide (not just amongst people who "hate freedom") has grown much stronger as well, and this does little to make me feel safer.

Re:That's actually true, though.

[Shihar]

I don't think you realize how bad Bush has been for the Islamic fundamentalist movement. I honestly think that if Osama could take back 9/11, he would. It is true that the US has polarized the Islamic world, but look HOW it has been polarized. There used to be a nation that followed the ideals that of the Islamic fundamentalist movement. The Taliban is exactly what they wanted and they had it. He had a nation that sponsored his movement and a safe place to train his men. Now he has absolutely no safe harbor. Absolutely no nation is willing to harbor these people any more because they US has made it very clear that they will not think twice to crush any nation that harbors and supports these terrorist.

Osama has certainly made the best out of a shitty situation, but a nation that would support that likes of Bin Laden is now an utter impossibility. Islamic fundamentalist have been driven from power in the places that they once held. At this point the only thing they can hope to do is to take as many Americans and their supports down with them.

The simple fact of the matter is that if the US doesn't want you to have a sovereign state and you are not China or Russia, you are not going to have one. They very best you can hope for is to deny US soldiers the ability to operate on the ground while keeping the American public sympathetic enough where the military can't take off the gloves and use the full force of the US military. If the best you can hope for is a perpetual state of anarchy, no national government, and an existence comparable to medieval living, you have already lost.

A quick thought.

[ImaLamer]

First, let me say I'm as liberal as they come and voting for Kerry. No sense in you trying to guess which side I sit on.

Okay, that being said, I would think that the news of a capture on Osama would actually hurt George W. Bush somewhat. I know a lot of people, undecided types, who think that Bush already failed when it came to capturing Bin Laden. If he was on ice somewhere and came out of the closet now it would be obvious to most that it was all just a conspiracy.

Furthermore, if Osama was "captured" between now and the election people like myself would just point out that Bush did good and I would tell people that Bush did his job and now we don't need him anymore.

I scares me to think that people would actually credit Bush with an Osama capture. He, himself, did nothing - it would all be the work of troops or foreign fighters. Seems to me that the blame for failure always goes to the guy on top but the credit is given to the men who were actually responsible. Look at Iraq. People blame all of the bad things on Saddam, not his henchmen who enforced his policies.

Just thinking... not trying to prove a point.

Re:A quick thought.

[sg3000]

> people would actually credit Bush with an Osama capture. He,
> himself, did nothing - it would all be the work of troops or
> foreign fighters

I'm sure you didn't mean the past tense.

My understanding is that we have few, if any, troops actively searching for Osama bin Laden. During active military options, we had only 12,000-15,000 troops in Afghanistan (as opposed to more than 140k in Iraq). The Bush administration has outsourced that job to Pakistan, which is disturbing. As Bill Clinton said in August, "Why did we put our No. 1 security threat in the hands of the Pakistanis, with us playing the supporting role, and put all our military resources into Iraq -- which was I think at best our No. 5 security threat?"

Bush moved many of the Arab-speaking translators from the Osama search efforts and put them in Iraq. Bob Graham said that General Tommy Franks lamented the fact that predator drone craft were being shifted towards Iraq as early as February 2002 [Source: Miami Times, September 5, 2004].

So if any U.S. troops are left looking for Osama, and they find him, it will be in spite of Bush, not because of him.

Then who was on the planes to Pakistan?

[leftie]

You are wrong. I don't know if OBL is alive, but there were abundant survivors from the caves of Tora Bora who were allowed through the lines of the warlords and were flown out of Afghanistan to Pakistan by Pakistani ISI. There were more than 1000 Al Queda and Taliban troops flown out by Pakistani ISI.

Also, the SpecOps soldiers would not know what was happened on the front lines. US SpecOps personnel were withdrawn from the front lines when the warlords took over the fight at Tora Bora.

Bush or Kerry getting killed very unlikely

[jgardn]

The last thing Bush wants is for Kerry to get shot before the elections; the same goes for Kerry towards Bush. Why is that? It is because if that were to happen, we would have a civil war on our hands, with extremists from both sides of the aisle shooting at each other.

These four candidates (Bush, Cheney, Kerry, Edwards) are protected by the US Military. They are the single most important target to defend.

It is critical to our union that the presidential candidates be elected by the people, not appointed by natural disasters or conspiracies.

didn't Osama need a dialysis machine?

[taxman_10m]

I find it very hard to believe that he has survived this long and crossed as many snow covered mountains as he did to get to his current possible location all while carrying a dialysis machine. It seems more reasonable to me that we bunker busted whatever cave he was hiding out at in Afghanistan and neither us nor his follows will ever find his remains.

Osama claims are there just to set it up...

[Shivetya]

This is the low road. Putting forth all sorts of tinfoil-hat claims just in case it does happen or something even distantly related happens.

It is nothing more advanced than the games we played on the playgrounds. It is childish and shows the levels the campaigns will stoop too.

Far worse than the October surprises are the claims that African Americans will be denied the right to vote by the millions, just as they were before!

Coming in October we should see claims that Senior Citizens will have their medicare and Social Security taken away, that blacks will be hounded by yahoos driving pickups in Texas, and that a certain Chief Executive eats babies.

Get real people.

I would be all for Osama or his Lts. being caught before the election. I don't care WHEN they are caught or killed, just that it happens.

To claim that it only happens because of an election is just to show how immature one side is compared to the other. (and they both STINK)

So I guess you know better than the CIA

[Mal Reynolds]

You say the audio tapes aren't genuine? I guess you know better than the CIA and the rest of the world's intelligence agencies, because they say he is alive.
The audio messages he has taped since the Tora Bora bombing have been confirmed to be Bin Laden's voice. Confirmed by the CIA, the world media, other intelligence agencies, confirmed by the Bin Laden family members and captured Al Quida members. ...
It's provable that some of those messages were taped long after 12/01. Because they mention events that occurred as recently as the past year.
It's also been surmised that Bin Laden got into Pakistan months prior to the US bombings of Tora Bora. He was given months of warning to move, many suspect that's exactly what he did.
General Tommy Franks said recently that there was no firm intelligence that Bin Laden was ever in Tora Bora. Bomb it to hell and back, how could it kill him if he wasn't there?
Why can't he be found? The intelligence community has suggested he uses notes, passed hand to hand, and his taped recordings in order to communicate with his followers. They say he could be in Pakistani badlands or possibly Cashmere. Either location would making finding him neigh on impossible.
There's a big difference between wishful thinking and facts on the ground. Wish him dead with the rest of us, but the facts and most experts believe Osama Bin Laden is still alive.

Re:So I guess you know better than the CIA

[overunderunderdone]

You say the audio tapes aren't genuine? I guess you know better than the CIA and the rest of the world's intelligence agencies, because they say he is alive.

No, as a matter of fact they don't. They *believe* the tapes are genuine, but to quote the CIA press release "the poor quality of the tape made it impossible to verify it was bin Laden's voice with 100 percent certainty." Of course finding WMD in Iraq was a "slam dunk", so take the CIA's testimony for what it's worth.

Outside voice experts have concluded that it is NOT genuine. However it is an *extremely* poor quality recording so their methods can't conclude for certain that it is a fake. Of course that cuts the other way too. Those that think it's a fake see the extremely poor quality as an argument in their favor... An impostor would intentionally use poor quality to confound accurate analysis.

Without any absolute proof the CIA and the administration are operating under the assumption that he is alive. But the theory that he is in fact dead, and the tapes are fakes while at odds with the official policy has plenty of adherents. The parent poster overstated the case... we KNOW for a certain fact that a significant number of Al Queada escaped from Tora Bora, but on the other hand we know that an even larger number did NOT. The fact that Bin Laden has not shown his face despite the huge benefit it would be to him to prove to the world that he is alive and operating is awfully suggestive.

His last known location was subjected to heavy bombing shortly after his presence there was confirmed (by radio intercepts). On top of that he was a very sick man in very arduous circumstances without access to the medical care his kidney condition required. The only subsequent proof we have of his continued existence is a very poor quality recording whose authenticity is debated by the experts and unprovable either way. It's possible he's still alive, but I tend to think it's more likely that he is dead.

More nonsense from Twirlip.

[Black Parrot]

> we have no DNA from Osama bin Laden so there's no way for us to positively identify any of the human remains recovered as being from him.

We routinely use relatives' DNA for this kind of thing.

Price of oil.

[Masker]

I actually think that a major drop in the price of oil & subsequent uptick in the stock market is a possible "October Surprise". Why would they do this?

o Oil is at the 20-year high, ~$50/barrel.
o Prince Bandar bin Sultan has already said (though long enough ago that people have forgotten) he'll step up production to cut prices for the election.
o Even a small drop in oil prices will cause the stock markets to rise.

It's a question of timing, I guess, when to drop prices so that everyone gets a nice gas-pump price reduction, but I'm waiting for it to happen.

Imagine if prices went back down to ~$40/barrel: stock market up, gas prices down & still ~$10/barrel up from a year ago. <sarcasm>Everyone wins!</sarcasm>

Re:Unemployment

[gaijin99]

Well, and speaking here as someone who doesn't like Clinton at all, I'd say that its because Bill lied about getting a blowjob. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd say that ranks around 1, it just really isn't that important. Now, if we were to talk about the *real* reasons to dislike Clinton (his idiot "don't ask don't tell" policy, his decision to help the elite with his "welfare reform" nonesense, etc) we might get into the realm of lies that rank 4 or above.

Bush, OTOH, lied in order to lead the USA into an expensive, and utterly pointless war. As a result of Bush's lies there are now 1060+ dead Americans, and we've got a debt that we'll be paying for decades to come. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd put Bush's lies at around 8 or 9.

Generally, I'd argue that a person who lies about sex is simply a human; everyone lies about sex. A person who lies to trick his country into going to war is a more serious problem.

Badnarik as the otober surprise.....

[isotope23]

I think Badnarik's campaign is going to throw some battelground states to kerry, and let him win.

The interesting thing is the main stream media and polling is either prohibiting his name being mentioned, and/or not including him in the polls.
I saw this for myself, as the other night CNN had Penn Jillette on live in Vegas. Although he has publicly endorsed Badnarik, he did not say his name on the air, (although he hinted at it) Big deal you say?

well apparently Fox has prohibited its guests from mentioning him:

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/09/26/ed. co l.nathan.0926.html

here is the relevant part :

"My friend Dean Ahmad, former treasurer of the national Libertarian Party and a representative of Muslims for Badnarik, was invited to appear on Fox News' ``O'Reilly Factor,'' but was told by the producers not to mention Badnarik's name on the air. "

Now I am not saying conspiracy, but news networks are supposed to be impartial, and what could be more partisan than stopping guests from mentioning a presidential candidate who is on the ballot in 49 states?

I wish someone could get ahold of Penn and verify whether or not he was prohibited from mentioning Badnariks name...

Re:Badnarik as the otober surprise.....

[bmetzler]

Now I am not saying conspiracy, but news networks are supposed to be impartial, and what could be more partisan than stopping guests from mentioning a presidential candidate who is on the ballot in 49 states?

Where do you get this idea that news networks are supposed to be impartial? All media is biased. Fox News just happens to have just about as many people with a liberal bias as a conservative one. Most other news networks have most liberally-biased media. There is no impartial news network.

-Brent

Even more nonsense from Twirlip.

[Black Parrot]

> Especially in this case, since there are literally thousands of people alive today who share bin Laden's paternal grandmother's mitochondrial DNA. The old sheikh was prolific, let's put it that way.

Absent some serious inbreeding, OBL doesn't have any of his paternal grandmother's mDNA.

Maybe the real surprise...

[m3talsling3r]

Is a third party land slide! http://www.c-span.org/search/basic.asp?ResultStart =1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=badnarik+cobb&ima ge1.x=0&image1.y=0

It won't be Bin Laden

[mabu]

Considering how Bush has avoided saying Bin Laden's name for the last few years, I'm inclined to not expect him to turn up before the election. If the administration had any hopes of showing up with him before the election, I can't imagine they'd try to get the American people to forget who he is like they've been doing.

Whatever the October surprise is going to be, I suspect it will turn up right before the election, not leaving any time for thorough investigation into the legitimacy of whatever stunt the administration may pull to affect last minute voting.