DON'T UNDERESTIMATE AL QAEDA

Usually the left bleats that the terrorism threat is exaggerated by the right; not James Wolcott:

Whoever carried out these attacks managed with a minimum of expense and a modest amount of planning and ruthless execution to upstage the G8 Summit, instantly deflate London's euphoria over winning the Olympic nod for 2012, and wipe the smile off of Tony Blair's face--Blair, for whom the G8 summit was to be his big comeback stage and an opportunity to get out from under his poodle image by taking the high moral ground over Bush on the issues of global warming and African relief. It's been over three years since 3000 Americans died on 9/11, Bin Laden is still at large, Iraq is turning into quicksand, oil has crested $60 a barrel, and yet the Steadfast and Resolute politicians and pundits still insist on underestimating the strategic and tactical intelligence of Al Qaeda. Why, I don't know.

Well, you gotta give Bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda's leadership credit, they're smart enough to get others to blow themselves up.