The July Surprise... right on schedule

Last month The New Republic reported a story that the Bush Administration has been pressuring Pakistani intelligence to find someone, anyone connected to al Qaeda at some time before the November election, preferably this week. According to the article "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.

Well, today, on the fourth day of the Convention, Pakistan came through. They reportedly found Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian who is on the FBI's most wanted "terrorists" list for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings by al Qaeda of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Sources say they dressed him up first in a beard and a turban, but he couldn't pull off the bin Laden lookalike thing. Ghailani probably isn't enough of an HVT to throw a wrench in tonight's nominating speech, but it is interesting to note that Pakistan apparently had him since Sunday:

The suspect had been captured during a raid in central Pakistan a few days ago. He did not identify the captive but said he was "a person who is most wanted internationally."

Timing is all about timing, as they say.