nonsense is the new common sense. bin laden gives bush a boost ok, imagine that it's mid 2004, and you're in a strategy meeting for the kerry campaign. it goes something like this: "alright, so what's the biggest failure of the bush administration?" "it's certainly his inaction on intelligence reform. it's been almost 3 years, and we still have basically the same intelligence structure that failed us before." "but he adamantly declares that we're safer now. no way the public is going to understand the complexity of this problem. let's pick something more obvious." "we haven't found the WMD. and we haven't found bin laden. dude, we haven't found the guy who was responsible for all this in the first place." "but we can't make a big deal about that. what happens if september comes around and they capture him?" "ok, then it's settled. we won't criticize him at all." this blog was intended to be about science and intelligent design. obviously it's also about politics. in general, I'd say it's about truth. my primary assumption is this: that meaningful truth (of the nontautological sort) allows for the possibility of being challenged by real data that can either support or deny the claim. I will write more about this later. for now... I can't imagine any hypothetical scenario that would cause the public to conclude that the president is not successfully fighting terrorism. if he catches bin laden, he's a hero. if he doesn't catch bin laden, he's the right man to be searching for him. if there is no new attack, then his policies are working. if there is a new attack, all the more reason to support his policies. finally, this: the hero effect doesn't last long. when the enemy is captured, the people can start thinking about more proximate issues. it always pays to keep an enemy at the gate. I'm not saying that bush is pussyfooting around bin laden because it helps his ratings, but I am saying that bin laden's continued existence gives bush "political capital", so he does have that motive. of course, in all honesty, the most probable scenario is that bin laden is still out there because of ineptness, and not some conspiracy.

move over, oprah. bin laden's book club