It turns out it’s not just the big global powers that have to worry about odd-ball conspiracies misleading potential supporters and tarnishing their image abroad. Seems the upstarts don’t have it that easy either. Usually it’s Israel or various anti-defamation type groups lashing out at conspiracy theorists alleging that Israel had some role in the 9/11 attacks. But now al Qaeda is lashing out at Iran for spreading conspiracy theories alleging an Israeli role in the attacks. And not some pseudo-qaeda like the outfit in Iraq, but the genuine article.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is attacking Iran for spreading the Israel-9/11 conspiracy theory in order to deny Sunni al Qaeda its hard-earned reputation as the leading practitioner of mass-casualty terrorist attacks against America.
“The purpose of this lie is clear – [to suggest] that there are no heroes among the Sunnis who can hurt America as no-one else did in history,” said Zawahiri.
Late Update: As a number of you have noted, Zawahiri seems to be cribbing his latest from this old episode from the Onion News Network …
(ed.note: As we’re getting ready for tonight’s big event, we bring you a replay of this morning’s episode of TPMtv.)
Usually, it’s not a good thing when a Republican elected official gets caught with hundreds of tapes of himself having sex with prostitutes. But for Cumberland County Commissioner Bruce Barclay (R), it was his lucky day. We give you the low-down in today’s episode of TPMtv …
High-res version at Veracifier.com.
As you may have noticed Drudge has up what he says are 5 PM exit poll numbers showing Clinton 52%, Obama 48%. I suspect they are ‘accurate’ as far as early, un-weighted exits can be. But let me point out that my recollection is that pretty much all the early and unweighted exits we’ve seen this cycle have turned out to be wrong. And often very wrong. So this has to be taken with a real grain of salt. And that’s assuming they’re not made up entirely.
Late Update: Jim Geraghty at NRO has Obama 52%, Clinton 47%.
And to be clear, when I say take them with a grain of salt, I don’t mean that in the garden variety, being responsible, ‘we don’t know for sure yet’ kind of way. I really mean that these early unweighted numbers have routinely been way, way off.
Later Update: Brendan Loy looked at some earlier states and seems to have confirmed what was my recollection that the early exits have not only routinely been wrong but they’ve routinely been wrong in Obama’s favor.
CNN has some exit poll demographics …
White men — 55% for Clinton.
Over 65 — 61% for Clinton.
African-Americans — 92% for Obama.
Alright. 5 minutes to 8 PM. Nothing left to do now but listen to the returns and crack jokes about Chris Matthews.
Late Update: Actually, don’t know what I was thinking. Russert too.
While we’re waiting, this is really going to be a question of whether these exits poll, which have now been officially released by the networks, are close to accurate.
Here’s the big story. According to CNN, Obama is narrowly winning among men (53%-47%), and Hillary is winning women, (55%-44%). As has been the case in almost all the big primaries, women significantly outnumber men in the Democratic primary electorate. According to the exits 58% of voters were female.
So it’s closer to the percentage among female vote percentage than the men’s. But that still leaves you with a very tight race — something on the order of a 3-5 point win for Clinton. So a win, but by no means a big one.
All that said, remember, the exits out of Ohio had it a much closer race than it ended up being.
First Matthews tirade of the evening … developing.
Matthews wigging out about role of money in HRC’s campaign, why surrogates can’t pay for their own plane tickets.
As I write Fineman and Olbermann are trying to talk him down.
Fox calling for it Hillary. So far the other nets holding back.
NBC calls it for Hillary.
ABC and CBS too.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a higher proportion of hypothetical spin on both sides in the absence of voting numbers. At the moment Tim Russert is going back and forth making each campaign’s arguments based on various hypothetical vote spread.