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The Pentagon has finally released video images of American Airlines flight 77 crashing into its headquarters on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed 189 people in the terrorist attacks. Recorded by security cameras, the videos were released after a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch. Unfortunately, the images are pretty slow — the AP report notes that they were “recorded on cameras designed to record license plates of vehicles entering and so too slow to capture the plane’s approach” at over 500 mph. They’re also very similar to images that had already leaked online, which have helped fuel many a conspiracy theory. If you have somehow become convinced that the crash never really took place, we’re not sure these videos will convince you otherwise. Then again, we’re not sure what would.

Open Salon interview.

A struggling Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Penn., went nuclear Wednesday, with an ad that tries to ally challenger Bob Casey with North Korea and China. Ah, the acrid smell of desperation in the weeks before a congressional election! Be prepared for even more of these terror-filled spots in these glorious final days of Campaign 2006, all of which carry a little DNA from the mother of all scare ads: The 1964 Lyndon Johnson “Daisy Girl” ad against Barry Goldwater (bottom ad, below).

From Michael Scherer’s piece today: “The GOP seems to believe that Ford’s appeal to its most reliable voters is working. In recent days, the Republican National Committee has attempted to reverse the troubling polls in Tennessee with a television ad that both attacks Ford’s religious credentials and invokes that old standby of American politics, racial fear.”

This National Republican Senatorial Committee ad against Harold Ford sports an early mention of a Playboy connection that the party hopes will rile Christians against Ford.

Salon’s piece on Rep. Harold Ford Jr.’s senate campaign spotlights his appeal to churchgoers, as in the TV spot below.