Dean's World

The New York Times' (probably bogus) story that American forces "lost" 380 tons of explosives lacks a certain important perspective: the 400,000 tons of ordnance that have been secured and/or destroyed. John Cole has a military perspective on that.

Of course, in truth, these reports of "losing" these explosives have been pretty heavily questioned, both by those in Iraq and by other news sources. Probably the best overall roundup on why the story of lost explosives is questionable and is almost certainly just a media hit piece is on Truth Laid Bear.

Indeed, the holes in the story are so huge, some are already calling this another media scandal, and have given it a name. I would have called it QaaqaaGate myself. But it's good to give this scandal a name, because it sure looks like the New York Times and CBS colluded on this thing specifically to damage Bush, and for no other reason.

Somewhere in all this proof of the New York Times' sloppiness and partisanship, though, we seem to have missed an important point: we've rounded up 400,000 tons of ordnance in Iraq. There are 380 tons we're not sure of the location of, although it's now clear that the idea that they were "lost" or are being used by terrorists is highly questionable. But, as Bar Code King notes, isn't it rather ironic that those who are saying Bush "lied" about Weapons of Mass Destruction, what the hell are we supposed to think of Saddam having 400,000 tons of explosives? That's about the equivalent of 100 atomic bombs worth of explosives. Oh never mind. The world would be much better with Saddam in power, we should never have taken him out, never...

Anyway, here's my question: the New York Times and CBS both seem to have trumped up this story as an attempted "October Surprise" to discredit Bush just before the election. We have six days until election day. Can they trump something else up in the next six days? Will there be another attempt at a ginned up fake story? If so, what might it be?