october’s running out, could this be the surprise we’ve all been waiting for?

ABC News has in its possession a videotape in which a man covering his face threatens new terrorist attacks against America. As they’ve yet to determine whether or not the threat is legitimate, ABC hasn’t aired the tape. Conservative attack dog, Matt Drudge, who somehow knew about the tape almost immediately, is calling for ABC to broadcast it at once. (You do remember that there’s a correlation between higher terror warnings and the president’s favorability rating, don’t you?) Here’s a clip from the Washington Post story:

It has all the makings of an incendiary story: a chilling pre-election videotape featuring a supposed member of al Qaeda, declaring in English that “blood will run red in the streets of America.”

The problem, say ABC News executives, is that they can’t determine whether the tape, obtained by a producer, involves a real threat — or even the identity of the figure on it, a man wearing an ammunition belt and a headdress that obscures his face. The network enlisted the aid of the FBI and CIA but still can’t authenticate the 75-minute videotape…

Ross and other ABC staffers say they believe that a Bush administration official leaked the story to Internet gossip Matt Drudge as a way of pressuring the network into airing the tape, which would heighten concerns about terrorism in the final week of the president’s reelection campaign. They note that whoever gave the information to Drudge had a transcript of the tape.

And just when you thought that they couldn’t get any more despicable.

I bet when we finally see the tape, they guy is threatening to kill only black voters in swing states… “We hate black man and woman in Michigan! And Ohio! We kill as they wait on long lines to vote, when they could be happy staying home, enjoying television, being safe.” Just wait and see.

I can’t find it now, but a few minutes ago I stumbled across someone’s reworking of the color-coded threat level chart that we’ve all come to depend on so much over these past few years. Inside each of the colored rectangular boxes, where you’d expect to see words like “Low” and “Elevated,” there was instead a percentage indicating how much either Kerry or Bush was up in the polls. I believe the red box, the box indicating a “Severe” threat level, said, “Kerry up by over 5%.” I wish I could find it. You would have enjoyed it.

UPDATE: ABC apparently just gave in and aired the tape. Now I guess we just sit and wait for someone to ratchet up the threat level. Maybe there’ll be a press conference tomorrow morning.