Mark Steyn: Osama bin Laden Is … Not Dead

The Spectator ^ | January 15, 2005 | Mark Steyn

[quidnunc]

It was wrong to say that al-Qa’eda’s commander-in-chief was dead, but not very wrong. Osama has been rendered powerless by America

Just before the election, in a column over on this side of the Atlantic, I wrote, ‘As for this Bush-failed-to-get-bin-Laden business, two and a half years ago I declared that Osama was dead and he’s never written to complain.’

And this time it worked! My plan to flush him into the open by mocking him as a corpse year in year out finally paid off. Within 48 hours, bin Laden had popped up to admonish the American people and in a curious passage — suggesting he’s been spending way too much time in the cave boning up on the electoral college and has become something of a convert to states’ rights — promised that any state which voted for Kerry would not be targeted by al-Qa’eda. So skip Florida this summer and try Hawaii.

This was the late Osama’s first appearance since I proclaimed him dead in a piece for this magazine called ‘Dust Bin’ back in 2002. To judge from the ‘Quotes of the Year’ round-up I saw in the Observer the other week, the collapse of my confident prediction has evidently caused some amusement among my colleagues in Fleet Street. A spot of post-election ill health prevented me addressing the subject and prompted a lot of mocking emails from jeering readers who thought I’d gone skulking off to find my own cave to lie low in for three years. On the other hand, a few loyal correspondents suggested artful ways that he could have left posthumous yet topical videos: …

-snip-

[Oschisms]

This is what he meant.

Osama bin digitized.

[CharlieOK1]

oh.

Hey, I had a pretty good guess then too!

[ASA Vet]

If I'd posted more I'd have had to hit the "abuse" button on myself.
Is that self abuse?

[Pokey78]

So you break copyright laws when you choose to?

Be honest. You do it for some kind of warped satisfaction you get by pissing everyone off. The Robinson's have let it be known what needs to be excerpted, and what doesn't need to be excerpted. And unless you are quidnunc Robinson, you are just being a jerk.

[xjcsa]

What an egotist. What makes him think that Osama knows [or cares] who this author is?

Might want to pull that old sense of humor out of the attic...Steyn's tongue is firmly planted in his cheek in that quote.

[Paul Ross]

Dressed like a Gulf foreign minister, sounding like a cross between a torpid Fifties secular pan- Arab nationalist and the last MoveOn.org member to get to a Fahrenheit 9/11 screening, Omichael bin Mooren’s message boiled down to: Honey, I shrunk the jihad.

Eagle's Up!

God Bless Mark Steyn!!

[xjcsa]

LOL

[Primetimedonna]

My plan to flush him into the open by mocking him as a corpse year in year out finally paid off.
What an egotist. What makes him think that Osama knows [or cares] who this author is?

Lost your senses of humor, irony and sarcasm have you????

[Rummyfan]

Hello? Does anyone in the Democratic party still read the newspapers, other than the fawning editorials of the New York Times? If an American falls into the hands of the enemy, he’s going to be all over the Internet having his head hacked off for a recruitment video or dragged through the streets and strung up on a bridge in Fallujah.

Exactly! And a good example of why the Dems can never be trusted to prosecute this war. Thanks for the de-quidnuncing.

[Rummyfan]

Bugmenot.com will provide a user name and password for any publication on the web.

[stands2reason]

Owned like quidnunc owns Mark Steyn. I never get to read him anymore because quidnunc has grabbed it first.

She has taken a major enjoyment of FR away from me and I don't appreciate it one bit.

[stands2reason]

I beg you, please leave Steyn alone. Excerpt anyone you want but him. I know because of you to check who is posting any article now. You have that much control over me, isn't that enough for you?

[stands2reason]

I think you make a major assumption in calling quidnunc a "he."

I've seen this kind of behavior before. It's not what I call "masculine."

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

Thanks for posting the full article, friend! :-)