corrente

As usual, those Brits do the analysis really well. Henry Porter of the Guardian opines:

The rather chilling thing is to consider how bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants view the election. Would they rather have a President Kerry or Edwards, who would make overtures to Islam, embrace the UN and heed world opinion, or would they prefer four more years of a man who had done so much to isolate America from the rest of the world?

Osama needs George, and to a degree George needs the mystical fear that Osama evokes. And it is this fear that will see this second-rate, isolationist, spendthrift President re-elected to the White House.

Of course, Bush might have OBL on ice now, thinking he'll keep 'til October. Or, Musharraf has him on ice, and that's the back story to that orchestrated Texas two-step on Pakistan's distribution of nuclear weapons last week (Kahn: "I distributed nukes." Musharraf: "That's really bad, and you're pardoned." Bush: "Whatever's good for you, Pervez!" I mean, was that weird or what? And how hard could it have been to track down OBL? I mean, how many hospitals that do kidney dialysis are there?

Yep, October surprise is my bet. After all, we know the Republicans fight dirty, fight for keeps, and the Democrats constantly bringing knives to the gun fight. And an October surprise with OBL is the biggest gun there could be, right? Case closed.