Tired Old Memo: Al Qaeda Threat Overblown; Urgent New Memo: Al-Qaeda Threat More Complex

The left has been fond of telling us that al Qaeda no longer poses a threat to us and in fact just yesterday the current occupant of the White House said it was really no big deal. Just shrug it off. Besides, we don't want to fuel anti-American extremism with our behavior, as preached here.

In 2008, in his book “Leaderless Jihad,” Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist and former C.I.A. officer who has long studied terrorism networks, wrote that Al Qaeda was in decline, to be replaced by dispersed terrorists for whom it provided mostly inspiration. The new generation of extremists, he believed, would be less skilled and would likely pose less of a threat than the network responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Dr. Sageman said he saw no reason to revise that judgment today. The plots of the last year should be carefully analyzed and the findings used to improve counterterrorism, not turned into fuel for thoughtless anti-Muslim panic and discrimination, he said.

“If we overreact and upset 1.5 billion Muslims,” Dr. Sageman said, referring to the global total, “then we’ll have a lot bigger problem on our hands.”

Fast forward to today and what do you know, we've got an election to win, so it's time to panic, everybody!

Three top Obama administration officials in the fight against terror said Wednesday that the al-Qaida threat to the United States has grown more complex in the past year and underscores the challenges of pinpointing and blocking terrorist plots.

In remarks to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Wednesday, Michael Leiter, director of the national counterterrorism center, said al-Qaida in Pakistan is at one of its weakest points organizationally.

Nonetheless, said Leiter, the terrorist group remains a capable and determined enemy that has proven its resilience over time.

"Groups affiliated with al-Qaida are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures," said FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said al-Qaida has inspired an array of terrorist groups.

"We are all seeing more diverse activity" by a more diverse collection of groups, said Napolitano.

"The threat is still all too real," committee chairman Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said as the start of the hearing.

If I didn't know better I'd suggest they're instilling fear int he public just six weeks before an election.

Wasn't that the mantra every election cycle during the Bush years any time terrorism was mentioned?

Just watch: The Obama media will dutifully parrot these threats today after years of downplaying them while Bush was president.