As expected, al-Qaeda has launched its "October Surprise" in an attempt to influence the outcome of the US presidential election: Members are endorsing John McCain.

Surprise!

In a story headlined "On al-Qaeda web sites, joy over U.S. crisis, support for McCain," The Washington Post reports that some militant supporters say a vote for McCain would be better for Al-Qaeda.

One person on a password-protected site argued that al-Qaeda has lured the US into a trap that has "exhausted its resources and bankrupted its economy." The writer then suggested that a new attack would turn voters towards the Republican candidate.

"It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda," said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. "Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America."

Then, as our colleagues over at Nukes & Spooks reported, the McCain campaign unloaded on The Washington Post and accused the newspaper of cherry-picking postings from the site to make its point.

In a special teleconference with reporters that you can listen to here, the McCain campaign went on to suggest that, if terrorists support anyone, they support Obama.

In the conference call, former CIA director James Woolsey (who served under Clinton) argues that al-Qaeda may be trying to use reverse-psychology to get Americans to vote for Obama.

"This individual knows that the endorsement of people like him is a kiss of death, figuratively and literally," Woolsey says in the call. "So it seems to me it's pretty clear that by making this statement that he wants, that it would be a good thing for McCain to be President, he is clearly trying to damage John McCain, not speaking from his heart."

So, by endorsing McCain, al-Qaeda was really endorsing Obama.

Get it? Those crafty terrorists are using psy-ops on the American voter!

But... wait a minute!

What if, by endorsing McCain, al-Qaeda knew that American voters would think that they were really backing Obama, prompting people to vote for McCain?

Maybe it is double-reverse psy-ops! Maybe they really do want Americans to vote for McCain!

Damn those terrorists!

And, if the terrorists are using reverse-psychology, is that what Hamas political aide Ahmed Yousef was doing in May when he voiced support for Obama?

Does Hamas really want American voters to support McCain?

Was Yousef using his nefarious Hamas mind-trickery?

Of course, McCain had no trouble at the time using Yousef's words to his advantage.

"If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly," McCain said back then.

The whole thing reminds one of the scene in The Princess Bride where the masked hero challenges one of the Bad Guys to a battle of wits. The masked man puts poison in a glass of wine and challenges him to decide which one.

The Bad Guy goes through some tortured mental gymnastics and tries his own reverse-tricks to figure out which one has the poison. Unfortunately for the Bad Guy, the masked hero has put poison in both cups!

You can watch the absurd drama unfold below.

AND, IN AN UPDATE: It turns out that the folks over at Sadly, No! have taken this to a whole-different level and turned the movie scene below into a McCain-Obama campaign showdown.

You can read their revised script here.

Sadly, No! bills itself as a "progressive humor site" based in Germany, so you can guess which candidate is the masked hero and which one is the Bad Guy...

Here's the original: