Al Qaeda Spokesman: Sorry, Mr. McCain, No Attacks Currently Scheduled

An unnamed spokesman for Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Ladin told a hastily assembled news conference along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that “no terrorist attacks on the U.S. are scheduled between now and Election Day” and that he hoped a key advisor of Republican candidate John McCain “wasn’t disappointed.”

“We have nothing scheduled for the next four or five months,” the unnamed spokesman said. “You know how it is. It’s the summer. We’d like to do stuff, but our wives need us at home to help with the kids.”

Charlie Black, an advisor to Senator McCain, had told Fortune Magazine that a terrorist attack on the U.S. prior to the election would be a “big advantage” to Senator McCain, because it would remind voters of McCain’s strong military background. McCain disavowed the statement, which Black later admitted he regretted making.

“We hate to disappoint people, because we have an image to maintain of being really dangerous, and everything,” the unnamed Al Qaeda spokesman told reporters. “But there’s nothing on the horizon. We actually like both candidates, because they are fairly weak as Presidential candidates go. One is young and inexperienced, and the other is kind of old and militaristic. We figure we can’t lose no matter who wins.”

The spokesman said there was another reason why no further major terrorist acts were scheduled. “Quite frankly,” he admitted, “America seems to be destroying itself without our help. Your bankers created the financial crisis that is destroying the housing market and pushing the nation’s economy into recession. Your politicians have made millions for themselves making imbalanced trade agreements that are sending millions of jobs and billions of dollars to countries like China. And your addiction to drugs and dangerous spirits are sapping the nation’s strength and causing you to spend billions of dollars building and maintaining new prisons and jails.

“Quite frankly, another terrorism attack on your country would be just superfluous. How do you say it in American football terminology? ‘Piling on.’ Look, we may practice asymmetrical warfare, guided by our religious beliefs that allow us to see unarmed civilians as enemies we have the right to destroy. But it’s not like we don’t feel your pain.”