Ohiocore

Reuters "Top News Article" discusses ABC's airing of an unauthenticated video tape featuring threats from self-identified "Assam the American" or "Azzam al Amriki", purportedly a member of al Queda. If from this post's title and all the qualifying modifiers in the preceding sentence you conclude that I don't buy it, you're right.

But I'll start with the supporting case. The 75-minute professional quality production shows an English speaking "terrorist", who a US counter-terrorism official tells the Post "is considered to be college-educated and probably raised or schooled in the United States." The speaker also delivers sentences and phrases, mostly quoting the Koran, in Arabic, "speaking the language well, but not as a native" according to CSMonitor. The "As-Shahab" logo, text runner and Arabic subtitling visible in the Monitor's pic, demonstrate the producers' (or producer's) familiarity with previous material and their sufficient skill in reproducing it.

But note the other elements of this story.

After acquiring the tape on Sunday, "ABC executives were frustrated that after holding the tape and working closely with federal officials to authenticate it, Fox News obtained and aired a copy about 20 minutes before it was shown on Peter Jennings's newscast last night."

CNN reports "ABC said it paid the source $500," and:

After a technical analysis, the CIA cannot determine whether [the] videotape... is authentic. A U.S. official said there were "real questions about its authenticity."

By that, the official said, he meant that it was not clear whether the tape was prepared by someone affiliated with al Qaeda and taking orders from its leaders, or whether it was a hoax. With the presidential election just days away, officials are wary of a possible trick by an impostor. "Without being able to authenticate it, it's just some guy talking on a tape," the U.S. intelligence official said.

Initially, the report was "ABC said on Wednesday that it would be 'beyond irresponsible' to broadcast the tape without first authenticating it." (Reuters) But the immediately (without even looking for it) I saw a flurry of posts to online fora decrying ABC's 'censorship' (for example, in a Boston Herald forum, side-linked from a straight campaign story). The complaint goes "So it's OK when CBS/Dan Rather and New York Times run unchecked stories, but now ABC has questions? Not fair!" You, dear reader, are supposed to recognize these enemies, since the Dan Rather piece was anti-Bush and the NYTimes articles were... totally unrelated. Er, I guess you're just supposed to detest NYTimes on principle: liberals, or something. And while you're hating them, you're supposed to forget that forgery and misreporting are bad, I guess, and just let this slip.

The result: soon it seemed to ABC that it had public demand to see the material. They aired the unauthenticated tape.

The message is largely predicatable. Beware America, you shall perish, we can strike at any time, etc. But also, "the speaker discusses the Darfur conflict, makes a reference to the Massachusetts same-sex marriage legislation, and mentions the Sept. 11 Commission... Besides Bush and Cheney, other U.S. officials mentioned in the tape include former CIA Director George Tenet, FBI director Robert Muller, and Attorney General John Ashcroft, government sources said."

Let's see, terror, terror, bloody terror, Massachusetts bashing, terror, name drop a bunch of government officials, terror, gay marriage, values, terror, 9/11, God, America.

Sounds like a regular campaign appearance to me. What could be more conveneient?