Via NRO, nothing says “slow news Friday” like a lazy post devoted to half-assed speculation.

On the one hand, he’s an old Democrat with friends in the Democratic establishment. He might conceivably have heard something from a friend who’s heard something from someone who’s in a position to know. On the other hand, I haven’t seen a single other liberal in media anywhere say anything about an October surprise. What’s most likely? That Bob Beckel, Fox News liberal, is somehow more tapped in to the White House than MSNBC? That lots of other lefties in media know what he’s talking about here but have held their tongues, with not even so much as an anonymous quote leaking into the NYT or WaPo? Or that he’s talking out of his ass?

Listen closely through the crosstalk and you’ll hear him say he thinks it has to do with national security. The only potential “October surprise” material I’m aware of lately is the rumor that Zawahiri was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Waziristan. A defense official already denied that, though. Maybe BB’s heard that we’ve picked up his scent and are trying to zap him before November, so that Obama can reverse some of the gruesome numbers he’s been putting up lately on foreign policy. I wonder, though, how long that bounce would last: Getting Zawahiri wouldn’t pack the same punch that getting the more iconic Bin Laden did, although of course it would pack some. If you want to get Americans high-fiving, take out the new “caliph,” al-Baghdadi, instead. Or better yet, take out both.