Would an October surprise even work?

The Last Chance Democracy Cafe follows up on yesterday's post:

Democrats have been worrying a lot lately about a possible October surprise. You know, some dramatic game changing event deliberately dropped into the closing months of the campaign in the hope of saving John McCain’s bacon: something along the lines of war with Iran, catching Osama bin Laden or McCain proving the Beltway pundits right by actually walking on water.

McCain can easily demonstrate his prowess at walking on water by taking one more teeny step off the end of the pier he's already standing on. My money's on straight to the bottom. Johnny, meet Davey Jones. Heh.

So does worrying so much about this (other than the walking on water part) mean we’re paranoid?

Nope, no paranoia here: There’s obviously nothing irrational about fearing that George W. Bush will do anything — and I mean anything — to keep his team in the White House. He’s proven as much on multiple occasions, most shamefully through the deliberate manipulation of terrorism alerts for political gain. Besides, Bush & Co. have plenty of incentive to continue their pattern of gaming the machinery of American democracy. If nothing else, how happy can they be over the prospect of having Barack Obama’s Department of Justice investigating their various crimes?

No, it seems pretty clear that the irrational thing would be to not worry about an October surprise.

But would one even work?

It might, I suppose, but personally I doubt it. Bush, the most politically obsessed president in memory, in terms of subverting federal policy for political ends, overplayed his hand long ago. No one believes him anymore. In fact, even if he were to act in absolute apolitical sincerity in, say, launching a few missiles at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a month or two before the election, people would still assume the worst.

He’s earned our abiding distrust the good old-fashioned way — by lying almost every time he opens his mouth.

I don’t doubt that he may well try to help McCain through an October surprise, but my money’s on it backfiring in a big way.

Steve's talkin' about the October Surprise backfirin' on McCain, but if Bush does something truly demented like bombing Iran, the backfire could extend waaaay beyond that as far as the U.S. is concerned. My visual of the 'backfire' Bush could cause goes something like a car backfire that blows the carburetor and exhaust pipe, cylinder heads attached, right off the engine with an impressive display of pyrotechnics, along with a flyin' hood and crap on the seat. God help us.