Is there an alert higher than red?

"Al-Qaida likely to attack US, intel says," is the headline of an Associated Press story this afternoon, based on the latest National Intelligence Estimate, which is the consensus of the 16 US government intelligence agencies. My first reaction is, "No kidding." The radical Islamists are not going to go away and, in fact, have been empowered by America's invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The best part of the story, however, is when Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, responded to a question about the political expedience of releasing some of the classified report while Congress is debating the war in Iraq. "'"We don't keep it on the shelf and say, 'Let's look for a convenient time,'" Snow said."

That's funny, because when George W. Bush's daily security briefing was titled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" in the summer of 2001, the Administration did exactly that.