So bin Laden pokes his malignant head out of the ground just a few days before our election.

He says we can become secure by ensuring the security of Muslims. Nice. Yes, Hussein was secure, and the Taliban was secure...until we took both of those noxious regimes out.

Anyway, Andrew Sullivan has this to say:

I'd hoped he was buried under rubble. What to make of the rant? The parroting of idiotic Michael Moore points was a little pathetic for an alleged spiritual mastermind. And the re-calibration of the rationale for 9/11 - again retroactively talking of Palestinians - was the usual vile opportunism. But why release a tape just before the elections?

The obvious answer is that it's a signal for sleeper cells to strike, and it's a bit strange that Sullivan doesn't make this connection. Bin Laden basically says it doesn't matter who we vote for, unless we pull out of the Middle East (and stop supporting Israel, and whatever else their laundry list contains), they're going to keep trying to kill us. Sullivan thinks the message helps Bush, and others think it helps Kerry by demonstrating that Bush has failed to capture bin Laden. But the obvious answer isn't that the video in and of itself is an attempt to sway the election, but that it's a signal.

I hope it's not, but the next few days will tell.