On the day four men were accused of plotting to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport, Rudy Giuliani summoned reporters to a late-night press conference after his speech at the Broward County Republican Party's annual Lincoln Day dinner.

As the television cameras rolled, the former New York City mayor and presidential candidate delivered a prepared statement: ''Today's arrests remind us that we are at war,'' he said. ``Today's arrests remind us that we have to remain on offense against terrorists.''

His gravity signaled that menacing forces had been narrowly derailed.

The New York Times -- which won multiple Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of 9/11 -- put the JFK story on page 37.

The newspaper's national editor, Suzanne Daley, explained on its website: ``Law enforcement officials said that J.F.K. was never in immediate danger. The plotters had yet to lay out plans. They had no financing. Nor did they have any explosives.''

But they did have evil intentions that fit perfectly into Giuliani's be-afraid, be-very-afraid campaign narrative. The arrests imbued his June 2 speech with urgency and power.

''There's people being arrested, there's people planning to kill us overseas, there's people trying to kill us in the United States,'' he told the audience of about 700 people at the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach. ``How can you still be in denial? The world is a dangerous place. If you can't face it, you can't lead.''

The crowd of Republican donors -- at least those who weren't cowering under the white tablecloths -- applauded.

The 9/11 attacks conferred a national stature upon Giuliani that is the essence of his presidential campaign. Color-coded terror alerts may do the same for his poll numbers that they once did for President Bush, before the weapons of mass destruction went missing.

A candidate who has been accused of cashing in on 9/11, both politically and financially, should tread carefully.

The JFK case recalls the ''Liberty City Seven,'' the group charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and federal buildings in five cities, including Miami. The Wall Street Journal intoned that the arrests ``serve as another wake-up call to the presence of a domestic threat from Islamic terror.''

Yet the FBI agents who raided the Liberty City warehouse where the men were staying found no explosives, just three machetes, a Koran and a PlayStation. Apparently, the closest the crew came to Osama bin Laden was an FBI informant posing as an al Qaeda operative.

In New York, even Michael Bloomberg downplayed the recent threat to the airport in his own city. The Republican mayor quipped that people are more likely to get struck by lightning than attacked by terrorists.

''There are lots of threats to you in the world,'' he said. ``There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life.''

Politicians -- and the media -- walk a fine, yellow-taped line when it comes to the war on terror. Downplay the threat and one New York City newspaper columnist will compare you to Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman asking, ''What, me worry?'' Overstate the threat and another political pundit will dub you a ``fear-mongering candidate.''

The middle ground is somewhere in between Code Red and page 37 of The New York Times.

Beth Reinhard is the political writer for The Miami Herald.

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