A 'FAHRENHEIT 9/11' FAN
BY JOHN PODHORETZ
October 30, 2004 -- CONGRATULATIONS, Michael Moore — America's worst enemy and one of the world's most evil men is a big fan of yours.
The most startling moment on the Osama bin Laden videotape shown yesterday was his description of the morning of 9/11, which is certainly derived — albeit in garbled form — from a viewing of Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."
"It never occurred to us that he, the commander in chief of the country, would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone, because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important," bin Laden said.
Just think. If the reprehensible Moore wins an Oscar for his disgusting piece of propaganda, Hollywood will be seconding the favorable opinion of Osama bin Laden.
I want to caution my friends on the Right about claiming that the Osama tape somehow is an endorsement of John Kerry. No doubt bin Laden would like to claim credit for changing the American president. Thankfully, the American people know better than to believe bin Laden will somehow go easier on us if John Kerry wins on Tuesday.
They know this monster attacked America when Bill Clinton was president and that he and his minions will continue to plot the mass murder of Americans no matter who is in the White House.
But something does jump out at you when you consider the message bin Laden was delivering to the United States. It was remarkably defensive, with bin Laden offering some kind of bizarre truce to the American people: "To the U.S. people," he said, "my talk is to you about the best way to avoid another disaster."
How thoughtful of him.
He told us that neither Bush nor Kerry could protect America: "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda," he said. "Your security is in your own hands."
In other words, if the American people would somehow agree to consider the security needs of bin Laden and his followers (whether that means just al Qaeda or the entire Arab and Muslim world isn't clear), we'd be safe.
"Do not play with our security, and spontaneously you will secure yourself," he said.
This is, I think, a profound rhetorical change from the man who vowed in 2002 that "the United States will not survive, will not feel any safety or any security."
Usually, bin Laden and his people tend to use the most purple and terrifying language about the damage they're going to do to the United States, as we saw earlier in the week when the American al Qaeda follower "Azzam" said on his videotape that "the streets of America will run red with blood."
Now bin Laden is talking truce.
What's changed, perhaps, is the ferocity of the American response to 9/11. Since then, Osama has been on the run, his Afghanistan safe haven destroyed, his movement under relentless financial and military assault. By offering America a deal, no matter how twisted and pointless the deal might be, the quality that he might be showing us isn't strength, but weakness.
Maybe he's feeling the weariness suggested in the videotaped statement last month by his No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri: "Oh young men of Islam," he said, "if we are killed or captured, you should carry on the fight."
Maybe they're buckling.
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