OBL and the Sullivan response
I was at a football game last night between to undefeated teams, psyched up for a gridiron classic. Spotting my friend on the sidelines, I went up to him and we talked for a few minutes. Talk turned to the election and he ( a major supporter of the democrats) changed my whole night with one sentence: "Did you hear the latest?"
I prepared myself for something I guessed occurred miles away from Ohio.
"No," I said. "I am in moratorium today. I haven't read anything politically."
"Osama put out another tape," he said. "And he looks good."
I didn't know how to take this, and my friend (knowing my obsessive compulsive side) apologized roughly 30 times for bringing it up.
"Focus on football," he said. "You were so excited five minutes ago."
But the truth is that I have been able to think about little but politics for the last 30 days. As someone who is 1000 percent behind the president's re-election, I have become a political junkie, reading every article by Christopher Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan and Hugh Hewitt that I could find. I went to real clear politics and like Dick Morris, read every poll for every state. All that stopped yesterday, when I became determined to avoid politics all together, even avoiding Mike Ubaldi's site. No politics means just that.
Then the tape. And the fact that it's now Saturday morning. Back to Mike's site, back to Mr. Hewitt and back to the grind. (I am however, not going to look at real clear politics. It's a great site, but I did decide to scale back just a bit for the election.)
Of all the reactions I have read, it is Andrew Sullivan's that interested me the most. A man with generally sound politics, Andrew has endorsed Kerry and up until today had (like the paranoid me) all but predicted a Kerry win. Sullivan responded to the OBL tape like this:
Bummer. I'd hoped he was buried under rubble. What to make of the rant? The parroting of idiotic Michael Moore points was a little pathetic for an alleged spiritual mastermind. And the re-calibration of the rationale for 9/11 - again retroactively talking of Palestinians - was the usual vile opportunism. But why release a tape just before the elections? The obvious impact will be to help Bush. Any reminder of the 9/11 attacks will provoke a national rallying to the commander-in-chief. The deep emotional bond so many of us formed with the president back then is Bush's strongest weapon in this election, and OBL has just revived it. The real October Surprise turned out not to be OBL's capture (sorry, Teresa!) but OBL's resilience. I have a feeling that this will tip the election decisively toward the incumbent. A few hours ago, I thought Kerry was headed for victory. Now I think the opposite. I also have a sinking feeling that that was entirely bin Laden's objective.
I don't agree that OBL wants Bush to win, but the perspective is something I think deserves some credence.
Three days till the election. I will celebrate Wednesday morning by ... going to work really early and laying out pages. I am a wild one.