Karma Chameleon: The Pimpernelian Shape-Shifting of Osama bin Laden

True, the guy in the video has a bulbous honker that little resembles the svelte-bridged schnozz that bin Laden sported for many decades -- right up until the day in 2002 when a suddenly portly, suddenly round-nosed figure calling himself bin Laden popped up on a video claiming credit for the the 9/11 attacks for the first time. (As WP continually points out, the FBI still holds that there is "no hard evidence connnecting bin Laden to 9/11.") And yes, the new rambling rant of the round-nosed guy in a fake beard does seem remarkably tailored to feed talking points to the right-wing media and discredit opposition to George W. Bush's escalation of the war in Iraq. And sure, it is intriguing to note that unlike the old days, when "bin Laden" tapes were kept under heavy wraps by t

Yet despite all of these elements conveniently converging to serve the partisan political interests of the White House, we are are told by unnamed "U.S. intelligence officials" that the video is genuine. And to be sure, these unnamed "U.S. intelligence officials" are all honorable men: faithful, credible, to be trusted implicitly.
So I suppose we simply must accept the fact that this bulbous-nosed, black-bearded figure really is the guy who the FBI says has no proven connection to 9/11, and thus be really, really scared that he's still out there, plotting terror on the Homeland, directing the Iraqi insurgency, managing the Democratic Party (well, somebody has to!), and having a high old time chewing the fat with his nice Jewish friend Noam Chomsky.
After all, to think otherwise, you would have to believe that the President of the United States and his officials were capable of deliberate deception, manufactured intelligence and base propaganda in pursuing their factional agenda. And we are certainly too serious here for that kind of pure moonbattery.
[For another strange case of physical mutation involving a much-hyped enemy whose depredations seemed to coincide remarkably with the PR and political needs of the Bush Administration, see Hubub in Hibhib: The Timely Death of al-Zarqawi. And for more on the long-running symbiosis of bin Laden and Bush, see Brothers in Arms: The Osamic Vision of George W. Bush (2002), and Brothers in Arms Again: Bush Faction Arming Al Qaeda to Thwart Iran (2007).] ***