Saturday, October 30, 2004
The Anti-OBL Tape Blog
I caught the OBL Tape brouhaha while carving pumpkins with my kids. By the time I got them to bed, the story had been blogged to death (and Joe Trippi was all over the nooze channels, being asked for his "blog/internet expertise"), the punditry split down party lines about the significance of the tape... ho hum.
My biggest surprise watching the nooze shows was the homoerotic glee with which Tweety greeted Ah-nuld's appearance at Bush's rally in Ohio. Tweety was all twitterpated at the Gropinator's magnifence (indeed, I think "magnficence" was an adjective Tweety used to describe the California Governor) and it was embarassingly obvious that Matthews was dealing with some uncomfortable swelling. Not that there's anything wrong with that - except maybe during the last few days of the election because, hey, it shows a lack of objectivity.
Within the punditry and the blogosphere, everyone seemed concerned with how this affects the candidates. My concern is how this tape strengthens the resolve of Islamist terrorists. If I was some hate-filled jihadist waiting for a motive to spill American blood, OBL's tape might be what I was looking for as an indication that the fight was on. One consistent reaction I've heard and read regarding this tape is how healthy OBL looked and that's mostly because no one was really sure if OBL was even alive. So here's a tape of OBL that's obviously contemporary and although OBL isn't looking like he's just gotten back from a couple of weeks at Club Med, neither is he hooked up to a dialysis machine. To an Islamist, the OBL tape has to mean "hope is alive."
The Sunday gabfests will flog the story of the OBL tape reductio ad absurdum and then we'll have football. Monday, the day before the election, the OBL tape will be last week's story.
So what will be next week's story? Well, right after the 20 million newly registered voters going out to vote and Republican attempts to suppress those votes, the main story will be "President-elect Kerry" on the lips of a punditry that will be collectively eating crow.
My biggest surprise watching the nooze shows was the homoerotic glee with which Tweety greeted Ah-nuld's appearance at Bush's rally in Ohio. Tweety was all twitterpated at the Gropinator's magnifence (indeed, I think "magnficence" was an adjective Tweety used to describe the California Governor) and it was embarassingly obvious that Matthews was dealing with some uncomfortable swelling. Not that there's anything wrong with that - except maybe during the last few days of the election because, hey, it shows a lack of objectivity.
Within the punditry and the blogosphere, everyone seemed concerned with how this affects the candidates. My concern is how this tape strengthens the resolve of Islamist terrorists. If I was some hate-filled jihadist waiting for a motive to spill American blood, OBL's tape might be what I was looking for as an indication that the fight was on. One consistent reaction I've heard and read regarding this tape is how healthy OBL looked and that's mostly because no one was really sure if OBL was even alive. So here's a tape of OBL that's obviously contemporary and although OBL isn't looking like he's just gotten back from a couple of weeks at Club Med, neither is he hooked up to a dialysis machine. To an Islamist, the OBL tape has to mean "hope is alive."
The Sunday gabfests will flog the story of the OBL tape reductio ad absurdum and then we'll have football. Monday, the day before the election, the OBL tape will be last week's story.
So what will be next week's story? Well, right after the 20 million newly registered voters going out to vote and Republican attempts to suppress those votes, the main story will be "President-elect Kerry" on the lips of a punditry that will be collectively eating crow.
