Roses Really Smell Like Al QaQaa

Condoleeza Rice found out that the al QaQaa explosives were missing about a month ago. Or so CNN tells me. They're also selling bridges in Brooklyn on a partner site.

For the 1,000,000,000,000th time, the question is: incompetent or deceitful? In this case, the answer is both.

In bizarro-related news, the Washington Times countercharges that John Kerry never met with all the ambassadors of all the Security Council Nations...he forgot about Mexico, Colombia, and Bulgaria. I'm inclined to think that Atrios's assessment is correct: Kerry had only been thinking of the Permanent Security Council members.

In what looks to me like his best post ever, Ezra Klein presents tomorrow's campaign journalism today:

Bush, Kerry Face Allegations in Final Days Of Election

by Faceless Drone

WASHINGTON, DC -- With only 9 days to go before the election, both John Kerry and George W. Bush found their campaigns faced with accusations of wrongdoing. Monday's "Washington Times" broke the story that John Kerry may not have spoken with every member of the UN Security Council prior to the Iraq War. This would be in contrast to an address Kerry gave, in which he claimed to have spoken with every member of the Council.

For his part, George Bush's campaign is responding to a Nelson Report story that found 350 tons of high power explosives, housed at the Al Qa Qaa bunker and weapons complex, were left underguarded and subsequently stolen in the post-invasion looting. As this weaponry was kept under IAEA seal, standard procedures would have dictated that the Bush administration notify the IAEA of the theft. The Nelson Report has found that the Bush administration has known of the arm's disappearance for over a year, but withheld the information from both the IAEA and the public for political reasons. Numerous experts have speculated that the insurgency possesses the stole explosives and has been using them to carry out attacks on coalition members.

With polls showing a tight race and neither camp able to make headway, both campaigns are closing ranks. Bush spokesman Gary Bauer called the Nelson Report's article "a politically motivated attack aimed at distracting voters from Senator Kerry's record of weakness". Tad Devine, speaking for the Kerry camp, called the Washington Times' allegations "meaningless". With a handful of days till the election, both campaigns have expressed confidence in their position and a desire to focus on GOTV efforts.

ROTFLMFAO, as they say. Actually, I'm working on another YDN column on exactly this subject. Developing...