Okay. Let's work through this.

Mass-murdering terror mastermind Osama bin Laden has released his first tape in over a year, addressed directly to the American people, just days before our Presidential election. (For the sake of this discussion, let's assume it's not a hoax, and that the video will be authenticated.)

Why would he do this? There are three possibilities. 1) Osama, as he claims, genuinely doesn't care who's in office, and is just trying to scare us before Halloween. 2) Osama is hoping to sway the election to help Bush. 3) Osama is hoping to sway the election to help Kerry.

The first possibility is the easiest to discount, due to the timing of the broadcast. You wouldn't choose your first message in over thirteen months to be days before the election, with a topic about the election, addressed directly to the American people, if you weren't trying to sway the outcome. Period.

The second possibility is laughable to all but the most maniacal conspiracy buffs. Although he claims it wouldn't matter if Kerry or Bush proves the victor, the tape looks like it was scripted by Michael Moore. From the transcript:

"It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone. It appeared to him that a little girl's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers. That gave us three times the required time to carry out the operations, thank God."

There is no way, with passages like that, that this could be some kind of bizarre Karl Rove conspiracy to scare people into voting for Bush. If Osama or a fake Osama wanted Bush to remain in office, they'd simply say "we're going to attack you soon" (or, attack us). Instead, Osama quotes from Farhenheit 9/11? No rational person can view this tape and deduce it's meant to help the President.

So, we can conclude with certainty that Osama bin Laden is trying to sway the election for Kerry. Any other interpretation is illogical.

Why would he do this? Well, I suppose I can insert the typical "because they know he'll be soft on terror" talking points, but really, I don't know. And, at least when it comes to making a decision on election day, I don't care. Osama bin Laden just got on international television and told us two things: 1) There will be more attacks on your country no matter who's elected, and 2) I'd really really really like it if you elected John Kerry.

Gee, I wonder which way we should vote.

Huh, that's interesting -- Zogby said on the Daily Show tonight that Kerry will certainly win the election, based on his polling. Pretty odd to be certain, since Zogby's polling has shown Bush always ahead in recent weeks, and zogby.com's lead story is "Bush Rebounds, Now Ahead in 5 States (FL, MI, MN, NM, NV)". But his point is that undecideds break for the challenger, and if Bush is below 50% on Election Day, he'll lose.

Personally, I'm not as convinced. In a time of uncertainty, especially with new "the streets with run with blood" threats, I think the undecided would be more likely to play it safe by not kicking out the incumbent.

What do you think?

The controversial anti-Kerry documentary "Stolen Honor" is now available for free viewing here:

http://www.stolenhonor.com/documentary/watch-video.asp

I haven't watched it yet, but will post my thoughts when I do. Sorry for the relative infrequency of postings lately; been a bit under the weather I'm afraid.

5 more days!

I'll be writing my "closing arguments" this weekend, but in the meantime I'd suggest the following opinion piece from the New York Post: Terror Takes a Stand. I hope Peters' points occur to the undecideds, as well -- before Tuesday.

It drove me nuts when "experts" in 2000 extrapolated Bush and Gore's respective I.Q's from their high school SAT scores, since most non-paid experts agree that no such correlation exists. (It also showed that Gore was in the top 1-2% of the nation but Bush was still in the top 5%, though people generally just took "Gore is smarter" out of that data). But I must admit I was surprised to read in the New York Times yesterday:

Mr. Bush's score on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test at age 22 again suggests that his I.Q was the mid-120's, putting Mr. Bush in about the 95th percentile of the population, according to Mr. Sailer. Mr. Kerry's I.Q. was about 120, in the 91st percentile, according to Mr. Sailer's extrapolation of his score at age 22 on the Navy Officer Qualification Test.

Linda Gottfredson, an I.Q. expert at the University of Delaware, called it a credible analysis and said she was not surprised at the results or that so many people had assumed that Mr. Kerry was smarter. "People will often be misled into thinking someone is brighter if he says something complicated they can't understand," Professor Gottfredson said.

So, Bush is in the top 5% of the country intelligence-wise, but Kerry's still in the top 10% (though sounds smarter than Bush because he tries talking over the head of the average voter.) Guess we're in good hands either way, huh?

Obviously I don't put a lot of weight in this, other than it's nice to have a little more ammunition against the "Bush is a moron" crowd. A Yale and Harvard graduate with an I.Q. in the top 5% of the country who is currently President of the United States is not, by any definition, "a moron". It doesn't mean you have to like him, or agree with his politics, but you need to develop a better insult. Besides, that charge doesn't mix well with the other anti-Bush arguments, that he "knew" all this stuff that the CIA and FBI didn't know, not to mention all the conspiracy theories regarding the Patriot Act, etc. He can't be both an idiot and an evil genius.

Best joke made about Kerry's recent geese-hunting photo op:

"Kerry appeared close with his fellow hunters, but as soon as they left, he accused them of raping the geese, and setting fire to geese villages." - Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live

In case you missed it.