Friday, October 29, 2004
Heavens to Betsy, what's all this to do about the bin Laden video? We've all had a pretty good inkling that the bastard was still alive and there has been no shortage of audio tapes from him or his deputy. For good measure, Al Qaeda decided that Allah wanted them to blow up some Egyptians and Israelis earlier this month. There was no noticeable impact on the American presidential election. The notion of some that this is a gift to Bush is fanciful.
Both candidates have declared that they're in earnest about pursuing Al Qaeda; Bush has no monopoly on the claim that we're at war with the terror network. Kerry hasn't run away from that - actually some of his best points have been about how the administration has neglected to address critical weaknesses, to say nothing of the charge that the Iraq war diverted us from the hunt for bin Laden.
How many Americans are going to see the video or read a transcript of its text? How many of those will be swayable at this point? How many of those will have thought that terror was not a threat? Almost everyone knows that it still is - public opinion polling has found a grim resignation to future attacks on the part of the American public. The likelihood that this will have an impact in the battleground states strikes me as being pretty small. John Kerry is right to respond dismissively to this. OBL may think he can intervene in our election, but this is very far from being his first miscalculation.
Both candidates have declared that they're in earnest about pursuing Al Qaeda; Bush has no monopoly on the claim that we're at war with the terror network. Kerry hasn't run away from that - actually some of his best points have been about how the administration has neglected to address critical weaknesses, to say nothing of the charge that the Iraq war diverted us from the hunt for bin Laden.
How many Americans are going to see the video or read a transcript of its text? How many of those will be swayable at this point? How many of those will have thought that terror was not a threat? Almost everyone knows that it still is - public opinion polling has found a grim resignation to future attacks on the part of the American public. The likelihood that this will have an impact in the battleground states strikes me as being pretty small. John Kerry is right to respond dismissively to this. OBL may think he can intervene in our election, but this is very far from being his first miscalculation.
