New Bin Laden Tape

Fox News has announced that Al-Jazeera is broadcasting a new tape from Osama bin Laden.

I just have one question at this point: Is it possible that even John Kerry could stoop so low as to exploit this development? I will be watching to see if he reiterates his lie that President Bush delegated the task of capturing Bin Laden to Afghan war lords. If he does that will be a new low for Kerry. But he seems to have an irresistible impulse that intensifies the closer we get to election day. And we couldn’t be much closer.

On the still of the video that Fox is showing on TV, not on their site, Bin Laden looks to have aged dramatically. Not that that is relevant, but I thought I’d make the observation anyway. The tape is said to be 18 minutes long and is addressed to Americans, who George Bush will not be able to keep safe. Oh yes, I guess we need to see whether Kerry will endorse Bin Laden’s assessment of the president’s stewardship. I doubt that he’ll be that foolish, but one can always hope.

Update: On Fox’s Neal Cavuto they said that Bin Laden actually said on the tape that if President Bush had been more alert the 9/11 attacks would have been less severe. If this the official Bin Laden endorsement of the Kerry campaign?

Interestingly, the stock market is apparently going up as a result of this tape development. Alan Colmes, on Cavuto, took the predictable liberal line, saying that the emergence of the tape could hurt President Bush, who stressed that we wanted Osama “dead or alive,” and were unable to deliver him.

Update II: Matt Drudge apparently thinks Osama, through the tape, is trying to inject himself into the American presidential campaign. Drudge’s Headline (and link) is: “Osama bin Laden, in Al-Jazeera video broadcast, campaigns against Bush…

U.S. administration resembles ‘corrupt’ Arab governments.”