One day closer

Only in his mind

Will Osama Help W.?
By MAUREEN DOWD

The Bushies' campaign pitch follows their usual backward logic: Because we have failed to make you safe, you should re-elect us to make you safer. Because we haven't caught Osama in three years, you need us to catch Osama in the next four years. Because we didn't bother to secure explosives in Iraq, you can count on us to make sure those explosives aren't used against you.

You'd think that seeing Osama looking fit as a fiddle and ready for hate would spark anger at the Bush administration's cynical diversion of the war on Al Qaeda to the war on Saddam. It's absurd that we're mired in Iraq - an invasion the demented vice president praised on Friday for its "brilliance" - while the 9/11 mastermind nonchalantly pops up anytime he wants. For some, it seemed cartoonish, with Osama as Road Runner beeping by Wile E. Bush as Dick Cheney and Rummy run the Acme/Halliburton explosives company - now under F.B.I. investigation for its no-bid contracts on anvils, axle grease (guaranteed slippery) and dehydrated boulders (just add water) .

Osama slouched onto TV bragging about pulling off the 9/11 attacks just after the president strutted onto TV in New Hampshire with 9/11 families, bragging that Al Qaeda leaders know "we are on their trail."

Maybe bin Laden hasn't gotten the word. Maybe W. should get off the trail and get on Osama's tail.

W. was clinging to his inane mantra that if we fight the terrorists over there, we don't have to fight them here, even as bin Laden was back on TV threatening to come here. The president still avoided using Osama's name on Friday, part of the concerted effort to downgrade him and merge him with Iraqi insurgents.

The White House reaction to the disclosures about the vanished explosives in Iraq was typical. Though it's clear the treasures and terrors of Iraq - from viruses to ammunition to artifacts - were being looted and loaded into donkey carts and pickups because we had insufficient troops to secure the country, Bush officials devoted the vast resources of the government to trying to undermine the facts to protect the president.

The Pentagon mobilized to debunk the bunker story with a tortured press conference and a satellite photo of trucks that proved about as much as Colin Powell's prewar drawings of two trailers that were supposed to be mobile biological weapons labs.

Republicans insinuated that it was a plot by foreign internationalists to help the foreigner-loving, internationalist Kerry, a U.N. leak from the camp of Mohamed ElBaradei to hurt the administration that had scorned the U.N. as a weak sister.

In their ruthless determination to put Mr. Bush's political future ahead of our future safety, the White House and House Republicans last week thwarted the enactment of recommendations of the 9/11 commission they never wanted in the first plac

The problem for Bush is simple:

He knows he's lost. Even with voter supression, too many new registrations for him to win without major democratic defections. He's under 50 percent in polling which doesn't account for new voters.

In the last two days, the GOP has:

Sent a flyer to Ohio and Pennslyvania with the burning twin towers on it.

Lost a major Ohio voter supression case

Accused Michael Moore of treason

Planned to send Dick Cheney to Hawaii.

Appealed after months of ignoring them, to Democratic voters, realizing that they lost those million gay votes and the promised evangelical vote is split roughly along party lines.

Suppressed the Osama video and then claimed that it would "help" Bush, because all people would do was shit their pants and look to Dear Leader to protect them, instead of being pissed he's alive and breathing. While people have feared they had him on ice, I think we can conclude that the exact opposite is true. Not only is he alive, he's laughing over the dead bodies of 3,000 people. The evidence is clear Bush was scared to death of an Osama return. Bush has been outwitted repeatedly and decided that Saddam, not Osama, was the great threat to the US.
And the "success" in Iraq just got eight Marines killed and nine wounded in an ambush. Kinda like a warning about what happens when we go to Fallujah. Do you think all those ex-soldiers didn't build ANY defenses and fire team and support plans while we stayed outside? The first attack on Fallujah was a surprise. They're waiting for this one, and the Marines may have two brigades to work with, against 5,000 full-time guerillas. It has not sunk in yet that we are fighting professional soldiers who no longer have corrupt leaders to answer two. They can show their skills and not worry about getting on Saddam's bad side or crazy orders.

Does this seem like a winning campaign?

They're grasping at straws because they can do nothing else. My feeling, Osama's return was the final nail in the Dauphin's campaign.

posted by Steve @ 12:35:00 AM