"Found a spoon, sir!"

It looks like Pakistan really did try to deliver on the whole "capture someone during the Democratic convention" thing.

Pakistan says it has arrested a senior al Qaeda figure wanted for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed hundreds of people.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat identified the man as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailini and said he was a Tanzanian national wanted for the synchronised bombings that killed more than 200 people at the U.S. embassy in Kenya and 11 at the embassy in Tanzania.

"He carried head money of $25 million (14 million pounds)," Hayat told Reuters on Thursday.

He said Ghailani was one of about a dozen people arrested on Tuesday when security forces raided a suspected militant hideout in the city of Gujarat, about 175 km (110 miles) southeast of the capital Islamabad.

Precisely as some have predicted.

Before I say anything else, let me say that the capture of any senior member of Al Qaeda, particularly one closely involved in the planning of terrorist acts against the United States, is a net positive.

However, speaking as a cold hidden political hack, this will not be a development on the level hoped for by Karl Rove and his minions. No remarks at the convention tonight will need to be prefaced with caveats about today's news. September 11th is not "avenged" by this. And I will still quote Monty Python's Life of Brian at the top of this post.

So I guess it all works out. An embassy-bombing dick gets caught, and the Republicans won't be able to use it against the Democrats. USA!