Lawrence Wright came to the Joynes room to talk about al-Qaeda! Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker and by definition has my eternal adoration. I showed up embarassingly early, sat right in front of him, and then spent most of the lecture agonizing over having the correct listening expression when he made eye contact with me. It was very interesting, though. Specifically, I liked his insights about the impact of humiliation on the Arabic psyche and how the role of women in society has contributed to extremism — he said “it’s much harder to be a terrorist if your girlfriend doesn’t let you.”
From the Nov. 1 Economist:

Dick Cheney, America’s vice-president, argued on Tuesday October 30th that Iraqi insurgents and al-Qaeda fighters are trying to influence next week’s mid-term congressional vote. “It’s my belief that they’re very sensitive of the fact that we’ve got an election scheduled,” said Mr Cheney. They are trying to “break the will of the American people.”

Quite what that would mean is unclear. Mr Cheney presumably wanted to imply that fighters in Iraq would rather see lily-livered, “cut and run” Democrats in control of Congress, not stout, “stay the course” Republicans.

I asked Wright about this (”How does al-Qaeda want me to vote?”) and he pointed out that, while pulling out of Iraq now does create something of a PR victory for al-Qaeda, staying lets them continue to use Iraq as training and recruitment ground for future terrorists.  So it’s not entirely clear how al-Qaeda would want you to vote, but Dick Cheney wants you to vote Republican out of spite.