Not an Attack, But a Halloween Scare
Many say this is the October Surprise, though neither campaign probably had anything to do with it. This is one of those last-minute variables which probably no one will be able to accurately measure before election day. And in a way, it is almost reassuring–it suggests that perhaps this is the al Qaeda action feared before the election, in lieu of an actual terrorist attack.
What it does, effectively, is to tip the ball in play and set both candidates into an unexpected fight to catch the ball and run with it to the endzone–and the politics of the situation has already begun.
Certainly, it is a surprise–we have not seen any definitive, datable proof that bin Laden really survived after Tora Bora, though we more or less knew that he was still around. But this video shows conclusively that bin Laden is alive and well. And it more or less puts to rest the theory that Bush caught bin Laden and was waiting till just before the election to tell everyone we got him.
So what will people’s reactions be? Will they see this as a serious threat and go running to Bush to save us? Or will they see this as evidence that Bush dropped the ball, failed to get the bad guy, and we need to get someone else to do the job right? Will bin Laden’s sharp criticism of Bush in the video allow Bush to run against bin Laden instead of against Kerry in the last days of the election?
Certainly this all helps Bush in one big way: no one is talking about the al Qaqaa explosives story now. Instead of the ball being carried slowly but surely into Bush’s endzone, it is now up in the air at the 50-yard line.
Four days to go.
I *have* to think that any political gain that is had from Osama’s latest media blitz is Kerry’s. Why?
Because one of the themes that Kerry has been hitting has been that Bush screwed up, and let Osama slide to the back burner while he ran willy-nilly into attacking Iraq.
(Kerry probably didn’t hit this theme as hard as he could’ve, for simple reason that he had to protect against the notion of the October surprise that we might’ve captured or killed Osama in the past and Bush was hanging on to him until just before the election. And how pathetic has American politics become that people, reasonably rational and relatively middle-of-the-roaders like me, are seriously talking about this kind of idea?)
What Osama’s tape does is remind people that hey- the Butcher of 9/11 is still out there, running around, free to urge jihad against us infidels.
That can’t help Bush. What’s more, Osama explicitly claims responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, reminding people that HE was The Man who got it done.
Again, this only reminds people that Bush has failed to get the head bad guy. It might just push a few fence-sitters onto the side of saying “You know, Kerry’s right, Bush’s cronies went running off to Iraq too soon because we hadn’t finished the job.”
It only points out the folly of the whole “Mission Accomplished” photo op on the aircraft carrier. The primary mission of the President of the United States should’ve been, is right now, and will continue to be to capture or kill every SOB that had responsibility in the 9/11 attacks.
Iraq can and should wait. Hell, North Korea is part of the “Axis of Evil” and we KNOW that they have WMD programs, if not actual function-capable nukes, and Bush is letting them wait.
No, this is a theme that (in hindsight, this is always easy to see/say) Kerry should’ve hammered home again and again in the past two months. Bush let the bad guys get away with it. Elections in Afghanistan mean nothing when you consider that the previous inhabitants are still out there, still saying they want to slaughter Americans.
Paul
Enumclaw, WA