Today’s terror headline:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22, 2007 — Mimicking the hijackers who executed the Sept. 11 attacks, insurgents reportedly tied to al Qaeda in Iraq considered using student visas to slip terrorists into the United States to orchestrate a new attack on American soil.

Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, recently testified that documents captured by coalition forces during a raid of a safe house believed to house Iraqi members of al Qaeda six months ago "revealed [AQI] was planning terrorist operations in the U.S."

At the time, Maples offered little additional insight into the possible terror plot. ABC News, however, has learned new details of what remains a classified incident that has been dealt with at the highest levels of government.

Sources tell ABC News that the plot may have involved moving between 10 and 20 suspects believed to be affiliated with al Qaeda in Iraq into the United States with student visas — the same method used by the 19 al Qaeda terrorists who struck American targets on Sept. 11.

Is this another one of those deals where, after a sufficient amount of time has passed, a patently non-story quickly ginned up on a bad news day suddenly becomes the turning point because we discovered they were going to hide under your beds until you were asleep and then slit your throats!!!!! ?

Back in August 2006, we had some Eqyptian college students go AWOL en route to a college seminar in Montana. There was a nation-wide dragnet. Fox News had extra-large letters in their chiron crawl, and Drudge rated the story five flashing beacons. News reports (relying on USG information, of course) stated “3 Missing Egyptian Students In Custody
Officials Say There's No Indication 8 Others Pose A Threat”, and “None of the students is considered a terrorism risk.”

The [Iraqi insurgent] plan was uncovered in its early stages, and sources say there is no indication that the suspects made it into the United States. Officials also emphasize that there is no evidence of an imminent attack.

So, naturally, a curious (or cynical) man might wonder why these Egyptian students, who were no danger at the time, might now be part of a serious threat to the very safety of the republic. And why are we suddenly being spoon-fed some story about putative plans to feed putative “insurgents” with alleged links to al Quaeda into the US for some vague plan to do something or other?

Ah.

Hang on a moment.

Poll: Bush Approval Rating At New Low On Eve Of State Of Union, President's Approval Rating Falls To 28%, A New Low

CBS) President Bush will deliver his State of the Union address Tuesday night to a nation that's strongly opposed to his plan for increasing troops in Iraq and deeply unhappy with his performance as president, according to a CBS News poll.

Mr. Bush’s overall approval rating has fallen to just 28 percent, a new low, while more than twice as many (64 percent) disapprove of the way he's handling his job.

Two-thirds of Americans remain opposed to the president's plan for sending more than 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Iraq — roughly the same number as after Mr. Bush announced the plan. And 72 percent believe he should seek congressional approval for the troop increase.

n. pl. ser·en·dip·i·ties

1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.

[From the characters in the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, who made such discoveries, from Persian Sarandīp, Sri Lanka, from Arabic sarandīb.]

Somehow I just knew there was a fairy tale involved in here, somewhere.