Radio host Rush Limbaugh eagerly touted an August 11 Washington Times article about a possible Al Qaeda plot to disrupt the U.S. elections that quoted an unnamed “U.S. intelligence official” who claimed, “The view of Al Qaeda is 'anybody but [President George W.] Bush.'” But as Media Matters for America has repeatedly explained (here, here, and here), what scant public evidence exists about Al Qaeda's preference, if any, in the November presidential election suggests that the terrorist network seems to prefer the reelection of Bush.

From the August 11 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: [reading from the Washington Times article] “The view of Al Qaeda is anybody but Bush.” Now, if this is correct, if this intelligence data is correct, and if this is what Al Qaeda is planning, and if bin Laden is waiting to give the order -- and that's what this all adds up to -- if this is true, and we'll just play it out because this is what they are telling us -- if this is true, they are going to try to pull a -- a -- a redux of Spain in this country, with the objective of getting Bush thrown out. Anybody but Bush.

[...]

Now, granted, this is an intelligence official, not bin Laden using the slogan, but they think that if - if bin Laden is going to launch an attack, or Al Qaeda's going to launch an attack on this massive a scale prior to the election, he, obviously he's trying to affect the election, and the conclusion is that they'd like to get rid of Bush.

Now, I wonder why. If -- if this is true -- we're just asking here -- this is true, why would they want to get rid of Bush? Why they going to get -- maybe -- all right. To survive? Of course, Mr. Snerdley. Way to go, Snerd. It's to survive. They'd rather -- they'd much rather have some softie who's going to farm out our -- our security to international organizations and others, oh, like -- like John Kerry.

As Media Matters for America has noted, the truth is that though little evidence exists suggesting that Al Qaeda has expressed any preference at all regarding the upcoming presidential election, Reuters reported in March that a letter from an Egyptian group claiming a link to Al Qaeda stated that the group supports President George W. Bush's reelection. Moreover, as MMFA has also explained (on July 15 and August 5), the assumption that terrorists sought successfully to bring about the defeat of Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, a supporter of Bush and the Iraq war, is questionable.