Black: Terror would help McCain

Fortune describes this, accurately, as a moment of "startling candor" from McCain advisor Charlie Black:

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.



It's a grim, reasonable question to raise, after the 2004 bombings in Madrid, which succeeded in unseating a conservative government; and after Osama's eleventh hour message message in the U.S. election in 2004, whose aim is still debated, but which helped, and perhaps was aimed to help, Bush win his second term.

But you wouldn't expect McCain's advisor to state it quite so flatly that an attack would help his candidate.