…but I don’t believe this threat to the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge is legit. Lady Liberty is a great symbol, but bringing her down wouldn’t kill very many Americans — the statue itself isn’t open to tourists these days, and a lot of the tourists on Liberty Island are probably foreigners. And, in case we all forgot, Al Qaeda likes to do more than destroy American symbols — it also likes to kill lots of Americans.

The Brooklyn Bridge is somewhat more plausible, especially if the attack were planned for rush hour… but here’s another theory. Maybe the Al Qaeda detainees who planted this piece of “intelligence” are deliberately trying to distract New York authorities so they won’t be paying attention to the apartment buildings stuffed with bombs, the ship heading into the harbor with nukes, the guy on the subway with smallpox, or whatever. Call me crazy, but I think it’s a diversionary tactic. That doesn’t particularly reassure me, but that’s what I think.