Not really, but he seems as dumb as a bag of rocks to try to play the Madrid game with Americans. There are LOTS of blue collar Democrats who will vote for Bush now simply to get the vicarious and perverse pleasure of confounding what appears to be Bin Laden's attempted manipulation. Well, not just blue collar types. Lots of Americans who don't feel strongly about supporting Kerry will have that impulse. So, you'd think UBL would know that right? Which would be an argument for that "reverse psychology" hall of mirrors referenced in the title.
Except for a couple of things:
1. Totalitarians really are that ignorant about the way free people think, and what motivates them... especially Americans, and
2. It probably doesn't make that much difference to him who wins, since he's confident he has the "method of Muhammed" and can't lose. Which means:
3. There is all up side and no down side, for UBL, to put out this tape. It's pure rational opportunism. In the unlikely event that Kerry does win Bin Laden can now claim to have influenced even the mighty Americans... which gives him enormous prestige where it counts: in the Arab world. True that scenario isn't very likely, but the payoff is huge and the risk is small (from his in-the-hand-of-Allah perspective).
Vote for Bush. It's the right thing to do. There's nothing wrong with the impulse of those blue collar voters. They're totally dialed in.
Update: Josh Marshall thinks otherwise (naturally), but proposes no rationale.
(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia, Anticipatory Retaliation and The Jawa Report)
Launched by Demosophist at October 30, 2004 03:05 AMThere's nothing wrong with the impulse of those blue collar voters. They're totally dialed in.
It sounds like what you mean is that there's nothing wrong with their conclusion. The impulse remains screwy. For example: if bin Laden were to exhort us all not to wear shoes, we may have the impulse to wear shoes. Wearing shoes, the conclusion, is the correct conclusion, but the reasoning that we ought to wear shoes because bin Laden says we shouldn't is clearly insane.
To a person that thinks like that, we'd have to say that it's just lucky that the opposite of bin Laden's demand coincides with the correct conclusion.
Posted by: jpe at October 30, 2004 07:56 PM