"Anybody But Moon"

This ridiculous wire story uncritically repeats a Washington Times story alleging that Al Qaeda is planning a major assassination and that its intentions are to disrupt the election. Further, it claims that Al Qaeda is of an "Anybody but Bush" persuasion, according to an unnamed intelligence official. Why don't I believe this?
Well, part of the reason is that I believe that Al Qaeda has been remarkably well served by Bush. After all, the effort and resources and manpower and potential future manpower that could have been put toward destroying Al Qaeda instead of removing a largely contained and defanged Arab despot that had nothing to do with it is enormous. Not to mention the increase of Anti-Americanism abroad and the alienation of our Western Allies that has accompanied Bush's presidency.
But the reason that I don't believe it really has more to do with the source. Just as I'm not going to believe Dick Morris if he's talking about Hillary Clinton's chances of running for president, and not going to take Pat Robertson's word if he's discussing the cause for Vince Foster's death, I'm not going to trust the Washington Times if it's trying to tell me who Osama wants in the White House. The Washington Times is one of the major "conservative" dailies in the US, the others being the Wall Street Journal, which would be one of the better American newspapers if its editorial page weren't written by Republican operatives, and the New York Post, the Murdoch tabloid and THE place to get completely inaccurate information about Kerry's running mate. I put conservative in scare quotes because I think it's hard to describe a paper whose owner had himself crowned Messiah by members of congress and is alleged to have been involved in passing submarine missile equipment to the North Koreans can really be conservative.
When I think of conservative I think of guys who wear ties every day and are are most comfortable with tradition. I think of middle aged, middle class, middle-American white guys who think things should be the way they used to be. I certainly don't think of people who work for cult leaders who advocate mass weddings, call homosexuals dung-eating dogs, claim to have been anointed by dead presidents, and claim in all sincerity that they're better than Jesus Christ.
The Reverend Moon is a dangerous man and the fact that his money, which comes from his fringe religious practice, Japanese fascists, and apparently extortion schemes, has tainted other religious groups and the US political order is terrible. I can't say specifically how much direct effect he has on his various publications, but they are clearly his babies. Moon has pumped over a Billion $ into the Washington Times over the years, and it has represented both his radical agenda and the Republican agenda since then. It has been shoddily reporting the news from a far-right perspective since 1982. The fact that wire services carry this dreck from the Times as if it's credible is deeply discouraging.