What I find disturbing is the certainty that should any terrorist attack happen in the US before the election, large swaths of the media will say it is Bush's fault.

I would hope that if an attack hits the US just before the election that this would increase Bush's support given his stance on the WOT vs Kerry's but after the Spanish election who knows.

Is this what my journalist clients call 'burying the lede'? The partisanship of the NYT reporting (now indistinguishable from its editorial page) continues to amaze me.

AWW --

No Chance. And Al Qaeda and their supporters better smarten up. Americans are most definitely NOT Spaniards or French, Germans, or even Brits, Poles, or Italians. (Remember, their most spirited and entrepenuerial left Europe for a reason.)

Second, as much as I like Aznar, I believe that he may have contributed a bit to the surrender by trying to put the blame on ETA (passing the act as yet another one in their history of terrorism) instead of on Al Qaeda who was arttempting a historic subversion of the electoral process. (It was this blackmail that should have been emphasized, not the "causes" -- Iraq.) He may have been the first to run for a bit of cover, and after that the rest of the troops rioted.

Al Qaeda's smartest move would be to raise the chatter leading to the Election, force the government into another awkward week of Double Secret High Alert, force the public to be scared, and then do nothing. It would reinforce the Dem message, if there is any, that life is back to normal but Bush just does not allow us enjoy it.

AQ is not smart, and remember they're living in their own fantasy world. I fully expect Americans would react as we always have against anyone who attacks us (here at home, not abroad, since a big part of all of us thinks we should stay home and let the rest of the world go straight to hell, if that's what they choose). However, after any attack I also fully expect CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, WashPost, etc to give at least "equal time" to those who would say it is all Bush's/our fault (why was the protest of ~60 people a few days ago covered so much?). A big part of that is pure electioneering, as I don't think it would be quite so bad after the election. But something fundamental has changed in the media. Even in America, who but Fox uses the term "terrorist" anymore?

MG:

A scared but not outraged public would result in depressed turnout in urban areas, which would guarantee a Bush victory.

"What I find disturbing is the certainty that should any terrorist attack happen in the US before the election, large swaths of the media will say it is Bush's fault."

It worked in Spain...