Alleged NYC terror plot buried in major newspapers

Former CIA official Michael Scheuer reacts

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," October 18, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST OF "YOUR WORLD": Meanwhile, a suspected terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda and a plan to put 9/11 to shame, with a 1,000-pound bomb meant to topple the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Well, of course he failed. But glancing through today's newspapers, you wonder if the whole thing even happened, because forget front-page news. This thing was barely any news. Try page 26 in The New York Times. It was page nine in The Washington Post, at least a slightly more promising page three in USA Today.

So, essentially, read it and weep.

To terror expert Michael Scheuer on our collective shrug.

Mike, man, oh, man, I mean, obviously, had it happened, there would have been a very different reaction, but are we that blase?

MICHAEL SCHEUER, FORMER CHIEF OF CIA BIN LADEN UNIT: No, I don't think so, Neil.

I think I have a little problem myself with this kind of FBI sting operation, because it doesn't really let us know what is going on in the country. But I think the most important thing here is it again undoes the Obama scenario, if you will that Al Qaeda died with Usama, because the gentleman that they enticed into doing this was clearly enticed because he thought he was dealing with Al Qaeda and the memory or at least the inspiration of Usama bin Laden.

And it really is the media, especially The Post and The New York Times and the major news channels, have really hidden the expansion of Al Qaeda in the years since President Obama has taken office.

CAVUTO: Now, I always wonder -- and you follow this far closer and more expertly than I ever would -- that we see some of the idiots who pop up, like this guy. Probably not a wise move if you are trying to be undercover to announce on the Internet you want to start a jihad.

Probably not the sharpest of attacks. But I always think of the underwear bomber, I think of the shoe bomber. These guys are not Mensa candidates. But I really am saying not to be dismissive that, for every one of them, there is a people like a Mohamed Atta, and I'm not trying to praise him, the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, who are craftily planning stuff with far more earnestness and intelligence and deadly accuracy, and that I wonder cynically if sometimes these guys are deflections.

SCHEUER: Well, I am not sure if they are deflections or the thirst of the law enforcement community to show that it's earning its money.

Again, in America, we're really at a dead end to know really what is real and what is not real anymore.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Well, what if the FBI had not cooperated or had an undercover agent with this particular guy? Would he have found another guy? Would he have succeeded? Or was it a good thing the FBI did what it id?

SCHEUER: Well, of course it is a good thing they did what they did, but it just -- it clouds the issue.

Neil, I think the real issue for the United States is -- and no one has done it -- is simply to put a world map up from 2001 and put one up for 2012, and the expansion, the geographic reach and the numbers of people fighting for Al Qaeda and its allies has grown a great deal in the last decade.

And there is no one who is reporting really on The Post or at The New York Times. And of course we are providing air support or we did in Libya, and it looks like we want to in Syria to people who are, really, in Afghanistan would be called the Taliban.

The Obama era in terms of Islamic -- Islamist militancy, has been a head -- a "your head in the sand" era, and America is going to pay for it very dearly.

CAVUTO: All right, I hope you are wrong, Michael. But you have been spookily prescient.

Always good seeing you, Michael. Be well.

SCHEUER: My pleasure, sir. Thank you.

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