The process story is a staple of most of the MSM and it is the classic tactic to spread the original slander without having to claim authorship or expose oneself to accusations of partisinship. Most of these stories start of with a recap of the original story, often without the explanation that many of the key accusations have been debunked or are questionable at best. This allows the pundit to spread the rumour without doing the real reporting job of verifying the accurracy of the story or debunking the story. the print press has been corrupted by the TV punditry sideline that sells more of their books and gives them more fame. They get more positive reaction from the process stories then their real job of reporting the facts. It also gives them them the illusion of gravitas when all they are doing is dime store gossip.

If we get through tomorrow without an attack I’m going to have to revise my thinking a bit concerning the “effectively” bit. I now think I may have given too much credit to the “every time we kill one another springs up” theory. This (and yesterday’s) tape are not effective recruiting tools without deeds to match the words.

Lucid explanations from Rick and RogerA and half a bottle of McCallan later I feel somehow better.

Brung ish on, you blooody Oshama!

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,136803,00.html

If only everybody could read this.

The only possible thing I can see that is “useful” about it is that it gives the public a chance to see how the candidates react to the tape. I frankly find it a bit disgusting that the concern among the chattering classes is not the issue of terrorism, but how a tape by terrorist leader will affect the American election, and who “benefits” or loses.” The issue to me is, does he (OBL) still have any capability, and if a tape is all that can be produced, the administration has pretty effectively isolated the sorry SOB.

PS: Terrye! you language is rapidly approaching my cavalry vocabulary.

I was 99% sure that Osama was dead.

I am currently 99% sure that the evil m**f**er is alive.

But at this point this is almost inconsequential; it is the Death Cult that matters. Without Osama, the Islamist barbarians would still want us dead. They were chanting ìDeath to Americaî and taking American hostages since 1979 without any help from the Osama.

So my viewpoint is probably more emotional than anything else right now.

As to the OBL tape, I agree with RogerA. They’re just not able to do it now so scare tactics have to suffice.

An American al Qaeda…shocking and frightening.

OBL showing up FINALLY after almost three years. Shocking and frightening.

I believe al Qaeda had decided not to attack inside America after Bush’s forceful response.

But now they’ve changed their minds. Zawahiri seemed to have said as much by telling his people to go ahead because America will fight back either way. (This was a couple of months ago.)

They simply haven’t had the time to develop their attack yet. I do expect another attempt…hopefully we’ll be able to stop it…and it would be something worse than 9/11 but I don’t think it could happen for another year or two. They have to be perfect.

Something to look forward to.