"This is the real deal. Honestly. This was not the Moorish Nation"

[Rose Siding]

...(T)he alleged British plot "is really, really serious," one intelligence official insisted yesterday. "This is the real deal. Honestly. This was not the Moorish Nation," he said, referring to the arrest this summer in Miami of a ragtag, FBI-infiltrated group allegedly plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. "We have reason to believe that this is an al-Qaeda-related operation. I don't mean in terms of a bunch of wannabes finding inspiration" in bin Laden.

WP

How pathetic. The Bush administration has to stress its sincerity by contrasting the severity of one plot with the overblown hype of an earlier one.

I don't doubt that the Brits busted up a plot, much like Ramsey Usef's similar one was thwarted by the US 10 years ago. But just a couple of months back, Alberto Gonzales assured us that we'd been spared the "bombing the Sears Tower in Chicago, the FBI building in North Miami Beach, Florida, and other government buildings in Miami-Date County". It sure was billed as "the real deal" at that press conference.