Surprise!

Actually, two surprises here--first, goddamned Blogger ate the original version of this post. Thanks, Blogger.

(And Blogger ate the second version--"maintenance." OK, one more time):

Second, Osama bin Laden emerged from his spider hole to lecture America about 9/11, "security," and even the upcoming election.

Third--as I expected, the Rethuglicans are spinning like Battling Tops.

I wish bin Laden hadn't opened his goddamned big mouth. But since he did, I'm gonna offer some spin of my own:

For THREE years George W. Bush has had the largest military on the planet at his disposal to hunt down someone who is admittedly in an out of the way location...out of the way to the extent that he seemed to think Bush was asking "about a schoolchild's goat" on September 11th. Robert Fisk once noted that bin Laden delayed a meeting with him for some time while he pored over old newspapers that Fisk brought with him.

But with the amount of military we've got, capturing the guy should be relatively easy--unless you do something really stupid, like, say, INVADE AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT COUNTRY. Now our military is mired in Iraq for some time to come, while bin Laden is free to tell us what he thinks of Bush, Kerry...and Sweeden, for that matter.

My take is: if someone is assigned to complete a task, and goes in an entirely different direction, I'm sure as hell not offering praise. No, I'm thinking about changing the person.

Bush had his chance, and he blew it.