Mr. October

Wrap your mind around this noodle-scratcher...If we all know it's coming, can it really be called an "October surprise"?

Karl Rove will pull out something crazy this October in order to mess with the Mid-Term Congressional election. Guaranteed. He does it every single election. This is the October surprise, of course, a big news story that sways voters right before an election. Not to be confused with the November surprise, which is when we're all surprised to find out that the vote-counting is fucked and we're stuck with the same group of useless babboons for another four long years.

That's becoming less surprising all the time. In fact, "November Surprise" is kind of an unfortunate misnomer.

Anyway, I've been thinking that the October Surprise this year (hey, I'm a Jew, I don't have Christmas to look forward to) would have something to do with Osama bin Laden. You notice how Bush wouldn't mentioned him at all for months at a time? Who could blame him? It would be like constantly mentioning to people that you owe them $20.

Or, to use another anecdotal metaphor, it's like when you brag about getting a cool new job and then you quit right away because it actually sucks but you've already told everybody about it, so you clam up and get awkward whenever anyone brings it up, which is all the time because people like to talk about when their friends get new jobs. Or is that just me?

So occasionally reporters would ask Bush about Osama bin Laden. Typically, the topic would come up on VH1 comedian-based nostalgia shows with names like "I Heart Five Years Ago!" Michael Ian Black and Ant for "Celebrity Fit Club" are hanging out on a futon:

"Hey, that guy who actually is the one who attacked us and stuff? Osama bin Latke or whatever?"

"Hey, yeah! What ever happened to that guy?"

And whenever it came up, Bush would get pissy and say that Osama bin Laden didn't matter because this was a War on Terror and he was only the world's most infamous and successful terrorist. I mean, who cares, right? We liberated Kuwait! No, hang on a sec...

It went on like that for a while, but of course with the fifth anniversary of 9/11 this year, the guy's name started popping up again. Even Bush re-affirmed his determination to actually catch the guy. You know this has to make him, personally, feel like a fuck-up. You're the Leader of the "Free" world, Commander-in-Chief of the world's largest army, the rootinest, tootinest, shootinest, most executingest governor in the history of Texas...You've had five years to catch one gangly Middle-Aged Saudi Arabian guy with severe kidney problems and you can't manage it.

I mean, this is downright Clouseau-esque. We even know the general world area in which the guy's hiding! We've got it down to not just one specific country, but a mountain range! That's more info than the give you at the beginning of "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego" and that's a game for 10 year olds!

But I digress. My point is, Bush has absolutely no reason to bring up Osama bin Laden. I would think that topic is radioactive for him, just generally putting him in the uncomfortable position of having to explain why he's such an idiot who's so horrible at everything he tries to do. (He's not even a good drunk.)

Yet here he is, bringing OBL up in speeches and interviews like he's just appointed the guy Iraqi Minister of Making Us All Look Like Assholes 24-7. And it's not just Bush. The media at large has developed Osa-mania, what with the outcry over Path to 9/11 and now these Fox interviews where Klinton goes Krazy*&@#^*! What gives?

My theory was that Osama was already caught (or proved dead) and that the White House has known about it for a little while, but is saving it up as a big October reveal. "We got him, here's his photo as proof, he's safely being tortured at one of our exemplary, state of the art and soon-to-be Congressionally-approved torture facilities. (Each one is personally inspected by Senators John McCain and Harry Reid to ensure a constant level of luxury, feng shui, cleanliness and lemon-scented freshness that is above reproach). Okay, everyone vote Republican, remember to tip your wait staff and have a good evening!"

I still might be right. These rumors being circulated by a French newspaper aren't really doing that much for me. A friend suggested that it might be French intelligence attempting to steal Bush's thunder, to spread a rumor that Osama was already dead of natural causes to ensure Bush couldn't use the death as propaganda.

I'm a bit skeptical. I just don't see how Osama being dead, no matter how it happened, hurts Bush. He can always say that the real reason Osama is dead is because of the pressure placed on him by an American-led manhunt. These guys are weasels, and they will say anything, and it's not all that absurd to say that Osama died painfully and hopelessly while hiding in a cave, a rich man who spent the last several years of his life hiding from the stern hand of Bush's justice. Okay, it's absurd, but the yokels will buy it! At least, enough of them to win some tight elections in Gaptooth County, U.S.A.

And, as Sol Rosenberg might say, I can't have that!

Another possibility occurs to me of late. War with Iran. Americans always back the President when there's a fresh war on. That's really the problem with Iraq. We keep having to chew the gum but it's lost all of the zesty flavor we once enjoyed.

The thing was kind of exotic back in 2003. "Hey, today we're in Basra! Now it's Tikrit! They're toppling statues! We found Saddam in a hole! With a huge spider, apparently! Just like in Lord of the Rings!" Now, it's like, the troops are coming back all crazy and we're finding out that all these greedy companies had been scamming us and we're totally losing the actual war and it's like a big wad of flavorless mush that you just want to spit out in your little sister's hair.

Now, Iran! That's like Mega-Eclipse Triple-Spearmintberry with Effervescent Action Crystals. A tingly taste sensation that it will take several weeks to get tired of and/or grossed out by. But, hey, that's long enough to pick up some seats up there in Gaptooth County (home of the Outlet Mall Outlet Mall, where the extra clothes that they don't want at the regular Outlet Mall are sold at considerable discounts!)

It would be completely disgusting to actually start a war for no better reason than to cling to power for 2 measly stinking more years. Which is exactly why I think the Bushcovites will go for it. These guys have a tendency to sniff out the least efficient, most dastardly course of action and plow into it at full steam, calling everyone who isn't rushing to keep up with the insanity a cowardly traitorous pig-dog. Hey, all I'm saying is that I heard their new Transportation Secretary is Snidley Whiplash. That's all I'm saying.

What can you say about the gentlemen who re-introduced America to torture? Americans have always had a love-hate relationship with torture. Sure, the "witches" in Salem might have been treated shabbily, but George Washington had insisted that British and Hessian POW's were not to be tortured. Indians may have been mowed down and butchered by the thousands, but when white guys shot at one another, they tried to just shoot the gun out of their opponents hand to avoid any excess blood spray. And, yes, okay, fine, maybe the entire economy initially depended on capturing, enslaving, torturing, raping, beating and eventually murdering black people. If you want to split hairs.

But we'd been working on a nice little run of not intentionally going out of our way to torture people. I mean, it still happened all the time in America (unless you think racist cops who arrested civil rights protestors were taking them back to the jailhouse for Dr. Pepper and Carvel ice cream cakes). But not as, you know, open official policy. Until now.

So, yeah, George Bush, Dick Cheney and the rest of the Little Rascals will try anything. If it will take a War with Iran for George to get his groove back, then goddammit, let's bomb the shit out of those Persian bastards! They're throwing off the Boy-King's chi!