Sleight of Hand

As most people know, magicians do their tricks by a technique called "misdirection." That is, if the magician's right hand is about to grasp a card or uncage a dove, the audience will have their attention riveted to the magician's left hand or foot or something, anything, but his or her right hand.

For almost six years, George W. Bush, fighting his ill-defined "war on terror," has made vague claims that this "war" is succeeding; that his tactics have saved American lives from attacks by terrorists.

This is in spite of the 2,265 soldiers' deaths in Iraq (as of today), two-thirds the number of people killed in the original 9/11 attacks, in none of which were there any Iraqi or Afghani participants.

This is in spite of his running roughshod over the Constitution, what with domestic wiretaps, accusations of treason against people who were simply exercising their First Amendment right to free speech, and the mind-boggling "Patriot" Act which makes "sedition" (criticism of the government) illegal.

So now, out of the blue, the president (I only capitalize this word for elected Presidents) has provided particulars for a thwarted attack. He claims that, in 2002, "terrorists" planned to dive a hijacked jet into the tallest building in Los Angeles.

If this is true, Bush gets a point. If it's another lie, he loses yet more credibility and, judging by the actions of Congressional Republicans and even his bedmate, Fox News, he doesn't have much left.

So let's examine the story. The details come from Fox News.

"We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks, had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast," Bush said in a speech to National Guardsmen in Washington, D.C.

At the White House's own web site, the full speech is transcribed. Bush actually specified the name of this building, which he called "Liberty Tower." However, there is no such building. The tallest building is called Library Tower. The president's spin doctors are making this out to be one of Bush's typical verbal gaffes, but it seems to me that it is simply evidence that the whole thing is made up. I know guys who remember every detail of a football game they played in 1969. If Bush was really involved in preventing an attack to a particular building, do you think he would forget its name just four years later?

In any case, getting back to this alleged 2002 attack attempt: One would expect that office of Homeland Security would have at least sent the mayor of Los Angeles an email that the Library Tower was in danger of being attacked. The mayor could then have quietly evacuated the building; could have called it a gas leak, if necessary, to avoid panic. But no:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Thursday he was blindsided by President Bush's announcement of new details on a purported 2002 hijacking plot aimed at a downtown skyscraper, and described communication with the White House as "nonexistent."

What??! What if the thwarting attempt had failed? If there was really an imminent attack on Los Angeles, how could the citizens have not been warned? At least, through the mayor? God knows there've been enough "terror alerts" that didn't pan out…and this wasn't one of them.

Is this what happened in New York in 2001? There's plenty of evidence the President knew about 9/11 in advance, too. As far as I'm concerned, there are two possibilities:

• Bush intentionally did not warn Los Angelinos about the potential 2002 attack, and therefore may have intentionally not warned New Yorkers about the 2001 attack.

• Bush is lying about the attempted attack in 2002.

In 2004, at the 9/11 Commission's 12th Public Hearing, John Pistole, the FBI's counterterrorism director, said that he was unaware of any "aviation attacks" being directed against the United States since 9/11. Pistole was under oath at the time. If he was lying what was the motive?

On the other hand if Bush is lying, what might be the motive?

Could it be that the unexpected ("jaw-dropping" in the words of Fox News) announcement of this alleged 2002 attack was intended to distract us from "Scooter" Libby's testimony, also yesterday, that his "superiors" instructed him to leak CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the press? Remember, Libby's boss was Dick Cheney himself. That means he only had two "superiors" in all the world.

Guess who they are…and who, therefore, are guilty of treason.

I call it misdirection.