I don't know

Gordon and Jeff didn't see the issue the same way I did in my last post. I don't know but my gut feeling says that enough people will see this as Bush's ultimate failure. This was the murderer, the international super-villain, a reg'ler James Bond bad guy, and Bush couldn't do what Her Majesty's Secret Service could, many times over. And here is Blofeld and his S.P.E.C.T.R.E. organization, taking over our airwaves to taunt President Impotent. Osama didn't look bad, he was calm and lucid, comfortable even. Bush had three years to make this guy's life miserable at the least, or turn him into fertilizer at most. Instead we had to go to war in Iraq. I think this points up Bush's failures in the brightest light possible.

Update: 07:15:

Kos:

Now, why that helps Bush is beyond me. For months, we saw the offense-is-defense idea pushed by every pundit you can think of who had access to RNC talking points that any discussion of Iraq, no matter how bad, was good for Bush. Whatever bad things surfaced that pointed out how screwed up Iraq was, it was good for Bush. Everything he did wrong was great publicity for him. Like the explosives story all this week. Like Halliburton investigations. Right.

I saw OBL today and I thought, hmmm. Looks in good health. Had access to video equipment. Arms work. Looks clean. So where is he? Why hasn't Bush found him? Why isn't Bush talking about him?

[. . .]

Update: 11:15:

Matt Yglesias sees it the way Gordon does:

I think liberals trying to argue that this bin Laden tape won't help Bush are probably fooling themselves. Bush will be helped, it's pretty obvious that Bush will be helped, and OBL is certainly aware that this stunt will help Bush. This is because, of course, OBL likes Bush in office just fine . . .