Joe Klein: Bin Laden supports McCain
Sat Apr 26, 2008 at 07:34:45 PM PDT
If the national political media is a "village," Joe Klein often plays the role of village idiot, endlessly pumping out "analysis" laden with error and psychobabble.
But Klein just wrote a truth rarely heard in the traditional media in the course of a back-and-forth he is having with Josh Marshall about whether McCain can still be viewed as running an honorable campaign when he is playing the Hamas and Ayers cards:
If McCain wants to go that route, I can suggest another: that John McCain is probably the favorite candidate of Osama bin Laden, just as George W. Bush was Osama's presidential preference. Why? Because both Bush and McCain have bought Osama's disinformation about Iraq being the central front in the war on terrorism. Of course, bin Laden wants the gullible neocons to take the Iraq bait because Afghanistan really is the central front of the war on terrorism--more precisely the Afghan-Pakistani border areas where the real Al Qaeda lives. The war in Iraq has been a grand strategic gift to Osama, keeping the U.S. military tied down elsewhere and off his tail.
Wow.
Klein goes on to say that people in the CIA agreed that Osama Bin Laden was rooting for Bush in 2004:
Ron Suskind had a relevant scene in his excellent book The One Percent Doctrine: It's the Friday before election day in 2004 and Osama bin Laden has issued a videotape in which he lambastes President Bush. The top dawgs at the CIA are gathered to analyze the tape. Dep. Director John McLaughlin says, "I wonder who Osama is voting for?" Everyone cracks up because the answer is so obvious.
For 6 1/2 long years, the media has enabled Bush to use 9/11 to scare people into supporting policies that divert us from Al Qaeda.
Meanwhile, the media have given the right wingers carte blanche to question the patriotism of anybody who opposes the neocon agenda.
And the media McCarthyism continues unabated, with manufactured controversies about flag pins, hand over heart during the national anthem, Michelle Obama's comments about feeling proud of her country, etc.
Even Hillary Clinton has gotten into the act, flashing an image of Bin Laden in one of her ads.
As a progressive I have been incensed that people like Bush, McCain, and Hillary who held one big recruiting fair for Al Qaeda in Iraq have had the nerve to question the patriotism of people who wanted to actually hit the real terrorists.
I have been further incensed that the corporate media has engaged in a massive psyops operation to convince people that the neocons will keep us safe.
So, frankly, I am pleasantly shocked that a traditional media villager is saying that Osama Bin Laden favors a McCain election.
Of course, Klein is doing so in a blog. His corporate overlords at Time Warner would probably never let him write that statement in the print edition of the magazine.
But this is an argument that we need to seize upon in the general election.
The media and the Republicans are going to try to use the fear cards to elect John McCain.
Beyond these tired diversions, I fear that Bin Laden will try to influence the election to help McCain as well. An American president who speaks of 100 years in Iraq is just what the Al Qaeda recruiter ordered. But the fact remains that if there would be a terrorist attack or even a Bin Laden video in the general election, the media would use that as a pretext to shift support to McCain. The media will never consider the possibility that the terrorists could be using elementary reverse psychology. It doesn't play in to their narrative that democrats love terrorists and republicans love America.
We have to be on offense on this issue. We can't just pick a military guy for VP and hope that we win a perceptions game.
We should unapologetically assert that our national security policy is what is best for America's safety and not take any crap about our patriotism.
So kudos to Joe Klein for a change.
But the fact that this truth is only whispered in a blog on a Saturday night when no one is paying attention tells us how much work we will have to do in the general election to fight against false narratives generated by a corporate media that loves its profits more than it loves America.
Update: Thanks for putting this on the rec list. My first! I'd like to thank the Academy, Kos, Joe Klein, and all of you for helping make this happen!
