Explosive Development?

The latest from the Political Grapevine:

Explosive Development?

A group of terrorists in Iraq has not only located those missing explosives, but it has actually taken possession of them, at least that's what the group claims in a new video.

The group — calling itself the Al-Karar Brigade of Al-Islam's Army Brigades (search) – says, "Heroic Mujahideen have managed ... to obtain a very huge amount of the explosives that were in the al-Qaqaa facility ... We promise God and the Iraqi people that we will use it against the occupation forces and those who cooperate with them."

So how exactly does the group say it got the explosives? Why, with the cooperation of a number of U.S. intelligence officers, of course. None of the claims could be verified.

More Times Details

Meanwhile, more details are trickling out about how the New York Times came to break the questionable missing weapons story instead of CBS' "60 Minutes" — which was working with the Times on the story and was planning to broadcast it two days before the election.

According to today's Washington Post, "60 Minutes" executives tried to get the Times to hold off so the two could break the story together this Sunday. But the Times refused, saying that wouldn't give the White House a "fair opportunity" to respond.

"60 Minutes" executive producer Jeff Fager, meanwhile, insists he was waiting until this Sunday to broadcast the story because "[it] came to us on relatively short notice," and that was the next available show.

An Image Problem

The Bush Campaign has made brief use of a doctored image of U.S. troops (search) in a new campaign commercial, called "Whatever It Takes." The image shows many of the same troops' faces, over and over again, in the same crowd as President Bush's voice says, "Because of your service and sacrifice, we are defeating the terrorists where they live and plan." The original image included President Bush on a podium.

The Bush Campaign insists it's all the result of an "editing error," that the actual crowd was every bit as big as it looked, and that the ad will be corrected.

Not So Neighborly?

A woman in Clearwater, Florida, has been caught on video camera stealing the Bush-Cheney (search) signs in her neighbor's yard. But, Nancy Rapp insists, her actions had nothing to do with politics.

She tells TV station WFTS in Tampa that her neighborhood's homeowners' association fines people $50 a day for violating rules that prohibit yard signs, and, "I am trying to help him."
Her neighbor, however, isn't buying it, and he's filed a police complaint, accusing her of trying to stifle his freedom of speech.

— FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report