We taped an episode of "Behind The Headlines" Thursday and panelist/contributing columnist Lisa Mossie -- who is always gracious enough to take time out of her day to join us every two weeks -- showed up at Norristown Area High School looking very much like the cat who ate the canary.

She was pumped about some comment Democratic Veep hopeful Joe Biden purportedly uttered on the campaign stump about the Obama-Biden team being tested early by an international crisis within the first six months.

Somehow, like most on the increasingly desperate right, she saw this as some sort of epiphany by the free-talking Biden and a waving of the white flag from the likely winners of this historic and marathon race.

She even gave Biden a thumbs-up for saying what he said and threw in that Colin Powell said something similar (didn't even come close, unless you go through life conviniently taking only literal meanings from everything anyone ever says).

As per usual on "show" days, when I'm worried about camera people signaling for a commercial break and making sure everyone stays involved, she had me at a disadvantage. Busy changing diapers before heading over to the taping, I didn't have the luxury of hearing what either purportedly said to make her so giddy.

My follow-up research from legitimate sources -- not hateful right-wing e-mail chains or talk-radio nutcases -- confirmed my immediate suspicions.

Biden's remarks were take so far out of context that she should come on the next show and apologize, even though that word is not in her vocabulary. Like a good right-wing foot solider, she utters a falsehood with confidence and hopes the ordinary Joes and Joannes are swayed.

It's on Page 1 of the Conservative Playbook.

What Biden said was that he wouldn't be surprised if the Obama presidency were tested but that the administration, one that will be filled with actual experts and not sycophants whose job it is to make an insecure president feel better about himself, would pass the test and ease fears of a public rightfully wary about Obama's experience.

The irony of the whole argument is that many on the right blame President Bill Clinton, not the current resident of the White House, for what happened Sept. 11. They say that the attacks were planned on Clinton's watch, so he is to blame.

So, if there is an attack planned early in an Obama presidency, wouldn't the same logic hold true?

The reality is that the same people doing a stoic job on the ground to prevent a terror attack are not going to be asked to turn in their guns and badges on Nov. 5 or the day after the next president -- hopefully Obama -- is sworn in to office.

My gut instinct, I hate to say it, is that an attack is being planned to greet the new president -- whether it is an old white man who spent time as a POW or a young black man who was the president of Harvard Law Review -- sometime in 2009. It may or may not be thwarted, but it is being plotted and planned as we sip our Green Tea and watch "Dancing With The Stars" (a Mossie favorite pastime, along with goading friends and relatives to vote for her on our "Vote for your favorite TH columnist poll.)

These terrorist attacks are like forces of natures -- like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. -- that can't really be stopped once they develop a mind of their own.

If they are meant to happen, they will.

It is how the man at the top reacts that makes him a leader worthy of respect; a leader worthy of his name being spoken or written.

I have more confidence that Obama would use his superior intellect and proven ability to rely on a trusted and diverse inner circle than I do in a guy who rubber-stamped the actions of He Whose Name Shall Not Be Written -- or spoken -- the last time around

Apparently, Colin Powell does, too.

As for my friend, Lisa, she would have been better off showing up for the show with a black eye and backward "B" carved in her face.

Believe it or not, it would have been more believable than her fairy tale about Biden (although I fear his loose lips still could sink the ship in a country that lives on snippets and not the full story).