And it begins ...

It’s a little early for an October surprise, isn’t it?

Sen. John McCain received two suspicious letters at two campaign offices, with at least one containing an unidentified white powder, U.S. Secret Service and McCain's spokespeople said.

Sen. John McCain's camp received two threatening letters, including one that contained white powder.

One of the letters was sent to McCain's campaign office in suburban Denver, the other to an office in Manchester, New Hampshire, causing evacuations of both offices.

The Denver letter, which contained threatening language and the white powder, was received at 3 p.m. (5 p.m. ET) at McCain's regional campaign office, McCain's campaign said.

[...]

The [New Hampshire] letter was handwritten in black ink and the envelope had a Denver return address, Sadosky said. The letter was addressed personally to McCain, a campaign source said.

If this turns out not to be flour or something sent by some harmless kook, what does this do to the government’s (weak-ass) claim that (government scientist) Bruce Ivins sent the post-9/11 anthrax letters and then (conveniently) commited suicide as authorities were (finally) closing in?

And what kind of idiot would put a return address on a letter like this?

Now that McCain has left himself open for a haymaker from Obama by revealing that he doesn’t know how many houses he owns, is it already time to reignite fears of terrorist attack, to switch the subject to the issue that is McCain’s alleged strength?

And is this an attempt to equate “Denver” with “anthrax” or “terrorism” right before the Democratic National Convention in ... Denver? An attempt to make sure there’s plenty of network coverage of “the hightened security around the convention site after threatening letters containing a suspicious white powder were sent to campaign offices of Republican candidate Senator John McCain with a Denver return address”?

Of course, I hope this is nothing, and that nobody gets hurt. And I certainly don’t want to make light of what potentially could be a serious situation. But I’ve heard “wolf” too many times to take this kind of thing at face value anymore. And if that makes me less safe, I have the Republican party, and the Bush administration in particular, to thank for that. But for now, this smacks more of political desperation than terrorism.