June 30, 2006
Time To Reel Off Another bin Laden Tape?
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Yesterday, a Supreme Court decision slowed the administration's march toward a unitary executive by declaring their system for dealing with prisoners in Guantanamo Bay illegal. So how did the administration respond?
Well, today yet another Osama bin Laden tape was released on the Internet. That prompts us to wonder, just how long did they have this one, before deciding it was news fit to release to the American people?
Purported bin Laden video on Internet praises al-Zarqawi (AP/Chicago Tribune)
The Internet provides several timelines of al-Qaeda's release of videos, audio tapes, and statements, including the following:
The BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/2827261.stm
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videos_of_bin_Laden
Map Report:
http://www.mapreport.com/countries/osama_bin_laden.html
al-Jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/
F0FD6DDC-28D0-4BE5-A0C4-D5A24F4EA7FC.htm
The timing of some al Qaeda statements has helped George W. Bush big time, like the one in October, 2004, just days before Americans would be going to the polls to choose a president. The most recent release, probably to his and Karl Rove's great disappointment, only played on page 18 of the Chicago Tribune -- although it was all over TV's morning talk shows.
Like Bush, we sometimes know things in "our gut" -- like, whenever Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda raise their ugly heads, it bolsters Bush's poll numbers and/or diverts media and public attention away from news that Bush would like us to forget.
We feel sure Karl Rove has noticed this, too. We're not saying he's buddies with bin Laden himself, but Karl certainly can influence how and when news reaches the American people. For example, The New York Times has just this week disclosed that administration representatives slowed the release of reports about the bank transaction monitoring that is going on in the name of the "war on terror." And the same was true of reports released a few months back about the NSA eavesdropping on Americans' communications without FISA court oversight.
BuzzFlash encourages any reader with some time on their hands and statistical know-how to come up with a graphic or tabular representation of this phenomenon. Can't you just see the dance of the lines on a graph -- one, the Bush polling numbers over time, the other al Qaeda's periodic emergence over time? A third line could feature key domestic political events.
Sometimes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS