Bin Laden butts in

Because of my stomach flu, all I could do was roll over and think “him, again!” when I first heard this morning that Binny’s back and he’s shaking his finger. Frankly, when I finally got around to reading the entire transcript translated by the AP, I actually almost smiled. This dude really sounds like a politician “runnin’ scared.” He can’t believe that his invoking American polls and sticking his nose in our politics is anything but good for Bush. He has to have other intentions. Gerard van der Leun, witty as always, says Osama is tossing his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination, but if so the wannabe Caliph ought to pay close attention to Hillary’s move to the center. (How about “Bin Laden gets tough on terror”? There’s a good campaign approach. Follows right in Chirac’s footsteps. Everybody’s doing it.) Of course, what Binny is really doing, as he almost always is, is preaching to the Islamic choir. The boy may be somewhere in the mountains of Waziristan but his heart is in Riyadh, battling out family squabbles. Most of us don’t grow up, but particularly, and most murderously, Bin Laden.

Of course, the real proof that Osama’s “runnin’ scared” is that his threats aren’t even upping the terror level. [Maybe he’s jealous of Ahmadinejad…-ed. I’d be. He’s got nukes.]