BOO!
:=8D

Don't ferget u can always e-mail the MooCow with cowments at MooCowMoo@aol.com!!!

Well, guess who'se ugly face has re-emerged to influence the '04 election - Osama bin Laden, of course! Yes, our favorite Saudi rowdy is one tacky terrorist - and now that the Wacky Iraqi is in jail, Baby Bush and Uncle Dickie can turn their attention towards his capture. At least, that's what they want you to think. See, the latest bin Laden video is clearly a reminder: stay afraid. The Republicans and their fear/war machine can't control an apathetic, brain-dead, Walmart-slurping populace unless its too afraid to go out and blow forty bucks filling up their gas-guzzling SUVs. Small surprise that the ultimate political bugga-boo has returned, just in time to influence people from voting for Kerry. Oh, it will generate some conversation, like the missing 377 tons of high explosives that mysteriously walked away because we didn't have enough troops on the ground to properly guard it, or the 50+ dead American-trained Iraqi troops that died because they weren't properly supported, or the ever-growing list of abductees, including 12 Nepalese hostages kidnapped and murdered - no, who would want to discuss that? Here's part of the AP story:

President Bush held a video-conference call with national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and the heads of the CIA, FBI and departments of Justice and Homeland Security. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the president directed them to make sure any necessary action is taken with regard to the tape.
McClellan did not say what steps were being taken or contemplated. He played down the possibility of the administration raising the threat advisory level, currently at ''yellow,'' or elevated, for most of the country. He did rule out Bush curtailing his campaign schedule to deal with the new video message.
The presidential candidates responded with reflexive gestures of unity to the sight of America's deadly foe on video, but those were swallowed up in the lunge for advantage in the campaign's closing days.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., campaigning for Bush in Connecticut, predicted Saturday that the bin Laden message would give the president a boost in the campaign's closing days by focusing attention on terrorism.
''I think the undecideds are going to go into the ballot booth and vote on who they believe can protect them the best,'' McCain said, maintaining that the answer would be Bush.
Mike McCurry, an adviser to Kerry, said the campaign has no way of knowing what kind of effect the tape might have on the election: ''We'll know on Tuesday.''
McCurry also rejected the idea that Kerry was using the tape for political ends, disputing Republican criticism and saying, ''It's hard to imagine how they could make that charge since he's the one that referenced the tape in his vicious attack on Senator Kerry last night.'' After a day in Florida, Kerry flew to Wisconsin to resume campaigning in Midwestern battlegrounds, where he and Bush spent much of the week. Iowa and Ohio were also on the Massachusetts senator's plate Saturday; Bush was stumping in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota before capping the night in Orlando, Fla.
Intelligence officials continued to analyze the bin Laden tape, which they believe is genuine and had been made recently. The campaigns pored over the implications for their scripted weekend finales, and both candidates rushed to TV cameras to respond.
''Let me make this very clear,'' Bush said in Toledo, Ohio. ''Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this.''
Kerry, in Florida, echoed that ''we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.'' He went on: ''They are barbarians, and I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes, period.''
But separately he returned to his argument that U.S. forces could have run down bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in late 2001 if they had gone after him on the ground. He blamed Bush anew for the decision to let Afghan forces lead that chase.

Sorry, it all seems a bit too scripted for me, a bit too convenient that the 1 thing that Baby Bush needed to boost his sagging campaign would happen just 3 days before the election. Either this whole story is being generated from inside, or bin Laden really does want to keep Bush in office, and thereby cowtinue to use Bush's ugly mug as a rallying point for future terrorists. EIther way, this will no doubt be bin Laden's second successful terrorist strike in 4 years.

:=8/



- posted by The MooCow @ 3:22 PM