Brave New World
OBL came into our living rooms and looked like he belonged there.
He chose the right moment to cut through the clutter and deliver his message to the American people.
He soaked up hours of free air time and gallons of ink for his low budget infomercial from the sensation-hungry media just like a canny political candidate or savvy 527.
Bin Laden sounded like someone who owns a VCR and surfs the net.
Who’s seen Fahrenheit 911 and knows the in-joke about My Pet Goat.
Who reads the political coverage knows Bush and Kerry’s competing obsession with convincing Security Moms that I Can Keep You Safe.
He talked as if he could understand us…
…and we could understand him.
That’s because he’s part of our world. He pushed his way in with four jetliners and 3000 murders on 9/11.
A world we swore to remake in order to exclude him.
But it looks like nothing had changed.
After three years of hyperventilating crusader talk, blind flailing about in the Middle East, and thousands of lives shattered and billions of dollars lost…
…after all that sound and fury that was supposed to transform the world…
…or take it back to the days when we took our sense of control, immunity, and security for granted…
…or at least drown out his message with our pain, anger, and outrage…
...it looks like we spent three years going in circles like Boy Scouts lost in the forest…
…and ended up tired, bewildered, and not too far from where we started.
On balance, the tape may help Bush simply because neither the media or Kerry have the stomach for examining the tape and broadcasting bin Laden’s punishing and rather spot-on comments about our prez, such as:
And
The media will revert to its dismal 2002 levels of chest-thumbing bombast, patriotic spin, and loyal obfuscation, at least on the subject of this tape, and that will suck quite a bit of news cycle oxygen from the highly damaging Iraq explosives story.
(N.B. the only version of the transcript that included the startling reference to Bush Sr. picking up pointers in the Middle East on how to install his prince lings into local satrapies was at the LA Times. I guess they didn’t get the memo. Neither NYT, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, Guardian, or Independent carried that part.)
And there’s a subtler dynamic. One that should offer some direction to John Kerry.
In the waning days of Bush’s first term, OBL is alive and kicking and seems to occupy a permanent place in our mental pantheon of things that disconcert, anger, and terrify us.
Like OJ, global warming, Swift Boat Veterans, death, and taxes.
A nagging, taunting presence that we can’t seem to exorcize.
Maybe some voters will decide they were just deluding themselves by believing the optimistic promises of John Kerry and reconcile themselves to the failures and diminished moral horizons of George W. Bush — and a world in which OBL drops in for holidays and important national occasions.
It’s up to John Kerry to project a message of hope and resolve as our President in Waiting.
To say that, unlike George W. Bush, he thinks about Osama bin Laden a lot, and considers it his first priority to capture OBL and dispel the psychic cloud and physical threat that bin Laden’s continued freedom forces Americans to live under.
To say We Will Find Him, and America will move beyond the Groundhog Day futility of Bush’s cycle of outrage, failure, and evasion in the Middle East.
That John Kerry will lead America into a post bin Laden world stronger, more united, and wiser because of the ordeal we have gone through.
Into a Brave New World, indeed.
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!
Wishing you all the blessings of peace and a new beginning on November 3.
Copyright 2004 Peter Lee
Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary website Halcyon Days. He can be reached at peter@halcyondays.info.
