We must take al Qaeda at their word (except when they say things we don't like)

This morning the Washington Post reported the following:

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

. . . [T]he comments summarized what has emerged as a consensus view on extremist sites, said Adam Raisman, a senior analyst for the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors Islamist Web pages. Site provided translations of the comments to The Washington Post.

"The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful 'son of Bush' -- someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk," Raisman said. "They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain."

Needless to say, the McCain campaign wasn't too pleased with this story and hastily convened a conference call with reporters to push back.

During the call, various McCain surrogates explained that it was "ludicrous" to take any of this commentary at face value: “It is ridiculous to believe that in its heart of hearts, Al Qaeda wants John McCain to be the president.”

The problem for McCain and his Republican surrogates, of course, is that they've been telling us for years that we have to take what al Qaeda is saying at face value.

How many times have we been told that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism, and that we should believe this because al Qaeda says so? Both George Bush and John McCain have made this point thousands of times. In the recent vice presidential debate, Sarah Palin said: "You don't have to believe me or John McCain on that. I would believe Petraeus and the leader of al Qaeda."

President Bush used to devote entire speeches to quoting bin Laden and saying that we have to take his words at face value. For instance, in September 2006, in a speech in which he quoted bin Laden at length on several different subjects, Bush concluded with this:

Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say? America and our coalition partners have made our choice. We're taking the words of the enemy seriously.

This has been the standard Republican line for years. And, as we all remember, when bin Laden released a video just days before the 2004 election that was critical of George Bush, every Republican surrogate immediately pounced and proclaimed that al Qaeda clearly wanted John Kerry to win the election (even though the CIA--as we now know--had reached the opposite conclusion).

And let's not kid ourselves, if the Washington Post article this morning had claimed that al Qaeda affiliated websites were expressing support for Barack Obama, the very same McCain surrogates would have spent the day arguing that we should take what they're saying seriously and McCain himself would be touting the group's "endorsement" of Obama. Indeed, if in the next two weeks, bin Laden releases some sort of propaganda video expressing support for Obama or criticizing McCain, these same people will pivot on a dime and claim that we have to take bin Laden's words at face value.

These are very serious people.