Isn't it funny how terror plots are only planned when the Bush Administration is in trouble?

Funny how there have been no terror threats while Karl Rove was on the back burner, and now that he's back in the driver's seat, the "Run for the hills! The terrorists are coming!" message is back in full force:

Seven people were arrested Thursday in connection with the early stages of a plot to attack Chicago's Sears Tower and other buildings in the U.S., including the FBI office here, a federal law enforcement official said.

As part of the raids related to the arrests, FBI agents swarmed a warehouse in Miami's Liberty City area, using a blowtorch to take off a metal door. A neighbor said the suspects had been sleeping in the warehouse while running what seemed to be a "military boot camp."

The official told The Associated Press the alleged plotters were mainly Americans with no apparent ties to al-Qaida or other foreign terrorist organizations. He spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt news conferences planned for Friday in Washington and Miami.

Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said in a statement that the investigation was an ongoing operation and that more details would be released Friday.

"There is no imminent threat to Miami or any other area because of these operations," said Richard Kolko, spokesman for FBI headquarters in Washington. He declined further comment.

FBI Director Robert Mueller, questioned about the case during an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live," said he couldn't offer many details because "it's an ongoing operation."

"We are conducting a number of arrests and searches" in Miami, Mueller said, which were expected to be wrapped up Friday morning.

Residents living near the warehouse said the men taken into custody described themselves as Muslims and had tried to recruit young people to join their group, which seemed militaristic.

The residents said FBI agents spent several hours in the neighborhood showing photos of the suspects and seeking information. They said the men had lived in the area about a year.

The men slept in the warehouse, said Tashawn Rose, 29. "They would come out late at night and exercise. It seemed like a military boot camp that they were working on there. They would come out and stand guard."

She talked to one of the men about a month ago: "They seemed brainwashed. They said they had given their lives to Allah."

Look at what now constitutes the kind of behavior that gets people suspicious:

- men exercising....at night....in Florida, where the temperature is up over 90 during the day.

- claims of having given one's life over to a deity

- "recruiting" kids for a karate class

Well, let's see: Sometimes I work out at night in the summertime because it's cooler.

And gee....when I see fundamentalist Christians who say they've given their lives to Christ, I think the same thing. The difference is that I don't report them to the FBI as potential terrorists. Though when you think about people like Paul Hill and Eric Rudolph, maybe we should.

And there are any number of martial arts schools in my area that "recruit" kids into studying martial arts. And parents take their kids there by the hundreds.

Sorry, folks, but something about this stinks to high heaven. It's interesting that the rest of the story will come out as part of the Friday News Dump -- which undoubtedly means that there's no there there, but it was necessary to push the fear button yesterday.