On Dec. 9 Al Gore showed the political fingertips that lost him the 2000 election. He endorsed Howard Dean, probably at the precise moment when Dean had peaked and was about to head down. Gore's endorsement came as a blow to Kerry, who had thought Gore was his friend, or at least his political ally. When the Kerry camp heard the rumors that Gore was endorsing Kerry's opponent, Kerry tried to call the former veep to find out if it could be true. Kerry had Gore's cell-phone number and called him. "This is John Kerry," he said when Gore answered. The phone went dead. Kerry tried to call several more times and never got through. He was hurt. "I endorsed him early. I was up for consideration as his running mate," he complained to an aide.

Former Clinton pollster Stan Greenberg had been pressing Kerry to tie the war to domestic needs—to declare that $200 billion spent on Iraq meant that much less funding for education and health care at home. Kerry used the line in a few speeches, but reluctantly. He didn't really believe it. In truth, he was willing to spend whatever it took to win in Iraq, or at least to extricate the United States with some semblance of honor.

Still, he was appalled by the carnage in Iraq and the waste of the war. On Sunday night, Sept. 19, the campaign staff met to discuss, one more time, the candidate's position on Iraq. The Clintonistas pushed a harder line against the war. But the campaign's old guard wasn't so sure. Couldn't Kerry play it both ways? Shrum cautioned against appearing too dovish. Kerry seemed to let the debate go on, circling around and around.

But then he spoke. "It's gut-check time, folks," he said. "This is not about whether it's politically expedient. This is a f---ing war. Kids are dying out there, and this president continues not to tell the truth. You'd have to be out of your mind to go in there the way he did. There was no WMD, no imminent threat, no ties to Al Qaeda. The answer is no. Anything else is crap."

Kerry had decided to be the antiwar candidate. Not for the first time, to be sure. He had called himself an antiwar candidate when he was trying to peel off the Dean vote in January. But he spoke without any equivocation this time. The next day he gave a blistering speech at NYU, attacking Bush for the folly of invading Iraq.

From the moment on Thursday, November 4, when a French official stood outside Percy military hospital and solemnly declared "Mr. Arafat is not dead," preparations rushed forward for his funeral. The immediate outcome was a split that rent the Palestinian leadership and Arafat's associates into two camps.

Jihad Islami, Hamas, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the other Palestinian organizations with a vested interest in continuing their campaign of terror against Israel were quick to plant a concocted rumor in the Palestinian street and mosques that Israel had slowly poisoned Arafat. This stratagem was intended to fan the flames of anti-Israeli violence and discredit moderate Palestinian leaders with thoughts of dialogue or peace - or even the ceasefire which Mahmoud Abbas is trying to broker. It was meant to make the Palestinians angry enough to refuse any accommodation with the Jewish state and insist on stepping up its war. This would tilt the succession struggle against the moderates and for the champions of continuing confrontation.

The failure of the Percy hospital's physicians to publicly diagnose the ailment that brought Arafat to their institution - contrary to custom for public figures - gave wings to all kinds of vicious rumors about his illness. It enabled the Palestinian extremist factions to blacken Israel to gain an edge in round one of their fight for the succession.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources in Ramallah and Paris describe the first camp as consisting of his wife, Suha Arafat, and personal aide Ramzi Khouri, who share a longstanding bond as members of the Christian faith, joined by Arafat's nephew Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian UN observer, and Dr. Amar Daka, his personal physician.

Only this foursome was allowed near his bed. They will decide when to disconnect the life support system and declare Yasser Arafat dead. By French law, the final word rests with his wife, Suha Arafat. She is buffeted by contrasting pressures from Palestinian leaders as well as considerations of her own financial future. The funeral will be arranged by Palestinian officials in consultation with the Israeli government.

After Arafat was hospitalized in Paris, members of the second camp, the confidential aides who accompanied him to Paris, were thrust aside and not permitted to visit him - among them, Mohammed Rashid, probably the only person privy to his personal financial secrets, his bureau chief, spokesman constant shadow Nabil Abu Rodeina, and Mohammed Dahlan, the protégé- turned-rival and former head of Palestinian "security" services in the Gaza Strip.

Once the funeral is out of the way, this second group will step into the leadership contest.

In Ramallah, Palestinian leaders sat in around-the clock conclave in a desperate attempt to make the transition orderly and agree on the funeral arrangements. To bridge the period of uncertainty, they assigned prime minister Ahmed Qureia with provisional responsibility for security and finances in the Palestinian Authority, and former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas the chair of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's Executive Committee.

Israel has demanded that a burial with the trappings of a state funeral must take place in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians, with some support from their European friends, are insisting on his burial in Abu Dis, the Palestinian suburb of Jerusalem that has a view of Temple Mount. Arafat had a building constructed there to house a future Palestinian parliament. It stands empty and could serve as a tomb. In Gaza, the funeral procession would follow the route taken by Arafat a decade ago on his arrival there from Tunis in the wake of the Oslo peace accords. Qureia will be in Gaza Saturday to discuss funeral arrangements with the local heads of organizations.

Both venues pose colossal security problems. Who will control the hordes of Palestinians on the move between the West Bank and Gaza Strip to attend the funeral? Who will guarantee the safety of the VIPs coming to the funeral - Western and Arab?

It has been suggested in some capitals, including Washington, that the funeral and the presence of international figures will provide an opportunity for discreet diplomacy. Americans officials may come to show their respect for the Palestinian people and mark the end of the Arafat era. ...

In David Brooks' latest editorial in the New York Times, he rightly dismisses the conventional wisdom about the election, noting that evangelical turnout this time was about the same percentage of the vote as last time (tip Instapundit). He also notes:

It's ridiculous to say, as some liberals have this week, that we are perpetually refighting the Scopes trial, with the metro forces of enlightenment and reason arrayed against the retro forces of dogma and reaction.

This jumped out at me, both because of my recent posts on William Jennings Bryan and because most people understand very little about what was really going on at the Scopes trial. The book that Scopes was teaching was a popular biology book of the day--George Hunter's Civic Biology (1914). Bryan was not just disturbed by the teaching of evolution but more broadly by the whole social Darwinist agenda, including both capitalism and genetic superiority. Civic Biology was a vicious social Darwinist tract. Here are some excerpts from the book, courtesy of Eugenics Watch:

Hunter's Civic Biology, p. 195-196

The Races of Man. — At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; The American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

Hunter's Civic Biology, p. 261-265

Improvement of Man. — If the stock of domesticated animals can be improved, it is not unfair to ask if the health and vigor of the future generations of men and women on the earth might not be improved by applying to them the laws of selection. This improvement of the future race has a number of factors in which we as individuals may play a part. These are personal hygiene, selection of healthy mates, and the betterment of the environment.

Eugenics. — When people marry there are certain things that the individual as well as the race should demand. The most important of these is freedom from germ diseases which might be handed down to the offspring. Tuberculosis, syphilis, that dread disease which cripples and kills hundreds of thousands of innocent children, epilepsy, and feeble-mindedness are handicaps which it is not only unfair but criminal to hand down to posterity. The science of being well born is called eugenics.

The Jukes. — Studies have been made on a number of different families in this country, in which mental and moral defects were present in one or both of the original parents. The "Jukes" family is a notorious example. The first mother is known as "Margaret, the mother of criminals." In seventy-five years the progeny of the original generation has cost the state of New York over a million and a quarter dollars, besides giving over to the care of prisons and asylums considerably over a hundred feeble-minded, alcoholic, immoral, or criminal persons. Another case recently studied is the "Kallikak" family. (Footnote: The name Kallikak is fictitious.) This family has been traced back to the War of the Revolution, when a young soldier named Martin Kallikak seduced a feeble-minded girl. She had a feeble-minded son from whom there have been to the present time 480 descendants. Of these 33 were sexually immoral, 24 confirmed drunkards, 3 epileptics, and 143 feeble-minded. The man who started this terrible line of immorality and feeble-mindedness later married a normal Quaker girl. From this couple a line of 496 descendants have come, with no cases of feeble-mindedness. The evidence and the moral speak for themselves!

Parasitism and its Cost to Society. — Hundreds of families such as those described above exist today, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

The Remedy. — If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with some success in this country.

Blood Tells. — Eugenics shows us, on the other hand, in a study of the families in which are brilliant men and women, the fact that the descendants have received the good inheritance from their ancestors. The following, taken from Davenport's Heredity in Relationship to Eugenics, illustrates how one family has been famous in American History. ...

For me, this irony cuts many different ways. The ACLU and Darrow were right in principle that the legislature shouldn't be determining what is or is not good science, but the version of evolution (white genetic superiority) that was being taught in Scopes would be viewed as very bad science today. This also illustrates that the spirit of free inquiry works, not because it is always right, but because people are free to put ideas out and have them refined and corrected. [UPDATE: Here 1920s science was right about the basics of evolution, but was wrong about social Darwinism and white genetic supremacy and was immoral to advocate eugenics.] It also reminds us that eugenics was a "progressive" idea in the 1920s. Last, of course, it suggests that the enlightened are often much less enlightened than they think they are. Sometimes neither the enlightened nor the supposed unenlightened are right.

UPDATE: Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan (from Jeff Epstein):

John Scopes (from Jeff Epstein):

[A]lthough the geographic divide remains the same, the parties themselves have traded places and survived the process. Understanding this switch is to me, at least, one of the most important stories in the past 100+ years of American politics.

The Agence France-Press (AFP) is reporting:

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was "brain dead" and breathing only thanks to artificial life support systems, a French medical official said after conflicting reports as to whether he was alive or dead.

In strictly technical terms, Arafat was "not dead," the source told AFP on condition of confidentiality, adding that the 75-year-old leader had slipped into an irreversible coma and could only be maintained in his vegetative state through ventilation machines.

This is inconsistent nonsense, though my knowledge of medicine (depite being married to a med school professor) is not sufficient to be certain that I don't make an error myself. However, a decade ago I read hundreds of medical and legal articles and polls on end-of-life decisions and wrote a scholarly article arguing for pulling the plug when you don't know what the person wanted. Also, I can't tell from the description whether Arafat is brain-dead or in persistent vegetative state, which is quite different.

First, brain-dead is dead. Before we had ways of testing brain activity, the test was whether the heart was beating. Now (in the US at least) if your brain is dead, you are dead. End-of-story. Although some hospitals have screwed up by mistakenly asking family members if ventilation (keeping the blood flowing) may be withdrawn in this situation, the family has no legal say (since all that is left is a dead body). Sometimes ventilation is continued to facilitate harvesting organs.

Second, a person in a coma is alive, but unconscious. A person who is brain-dead would not be considered to be in a coma. A persistent vegetative state, on the other hand, is a condition where lower brain functions are still present, but higher brain functions are gone:

Individuals in such a state have lost their thinking abilities and awareness of their surroundings, but retain non-cognitive function and normal sleep patterns. Even though those in a persistent vegetative state lose their higher brain functions, other key functions such as breathing and circulation remain relatively intact. Spontaneous movements may occur, and the eyes may open in response to external stimuli. They may even occasionally grimace, cry, or laugh. Although individuals in a persistent vegetative state may appear somewhat normal, they do not speak and they are unable to respond to commands.

So if Arafat is brain-dead, he is simply dead, no matter whether he is on a ventilator. If he is in a coma, then he is not brain-dead. If the higher cerebral functioning shows up, the person would usually be said to be in a coma. If he has little or no higher brain functioning, then he would be in PVS, but still legally alive. At least that is how I (as a lawyer) understand things.

According to the Guardian, in 2000 Clark County went 0.3% for Gore while Ohio went 3.9% for Bush, so it was 4.2% more Democratic than the rest of the state. In 2004 Clark County went for Bush by 2.4% over Kerry (compared to about 2.7% for Ohio in 2004).

So Clark County moved 3.9% toward the Republicans compared to the rest of the state. I wonder if the Guardian's letter writing campaign had any effect. Tim Blair comments as well.

UPDATE: Just to clarify, the 2000 data above comes from the official vote counts because I found a problem with the Guardian rounding 0.3% up to 1%.

At 4am ET early Wednesday morning, this official list of the number of Ohio provisional ballots by county does not have anything listed for Cuyahoga County.

Assuming that there is no way to manufacture new provisional ballots in the next few hours, it appears that Americans were lucky this time that the results in Florida and Ohio were not close. At 4am Wednesday, with 100% of the Ohio precincts reporting, Bush leads Ohio by 145,000 votes (51.1% to 48.4%)--very different from the effective tie in Florida in 2000 (just a few hundred votes difference then). People were so strongly expecting a razor thin result in Ohio that they haven't yet fully adjusted to the fact that it wasn't too close. Wins by more than 2% are completely ordinary and--absent special evidence that I am not privy to--not the sort of situation that should merit special scrutiny.

If I were Kerry, I would wait to see how many provisional ballots there are in Ohio (just to be reasonably cautious), assess whether Bush won any one of Iowa, Nevada, or New Mexico, and then make a quick decision. By the way, as I go to bed, Bush is leading by 3% in Nevada with 100% of the precincts reporting (and CNN just called Nevada for Bush).

UPDATE (4:40am Wed.): In just the last 45 minutes, almost half of the missing counties have added counts of provisional ballots, raising the total from 76,000 to 110,000.

2d UPDATE (4:50am): The official Ohio website shows a 134,000 vote difference between Bush and Kerry.

3d UPDATE (5:25am): The Ohio website still has 10 counties outstanding, but Cuyahoga has come through with a plausible number of provisional ballots. The total is now 135,000 but is likely to stay low enough that a Kerry concession on Wednesday is likely--perhaps with the slightest of reservations on his part just in case the count comes out shockingly in his favor.

4th UPDATE (11:35am): Kerry has conceded and the reporters (particularly Jim Acosta of CBS, whom I am watching right now) are saying that they are hearing that the Kerry camp's analysis was essentially the same as what I was saying last night. Unlike Hugh Hewitt, I don't at all fault Kerry for waiting to see how many provisional votes there were in Ohio. But, as is being reported, Kerry determined that the existing difference in Ohio was just too steep to be overcome. Kudos to Kerry.

NEWSMAX reports:

Brokaw: Kerry Blamed Low IQ Score on Drinking

John Kerry told NBC newsman Tom Brokaw last week that the reason President Bush outscored him on military intelligence tests was that he had likely been drinking the night before his exam.

Brokaw revealed Kerry's off camera excuse in an Election morning interview with radio host Don Imus.

"I asked the question of John Kerry because the New York Times had reported that a man by the name of David [actually, Steve] Sailer had analyzed their military aptitude tests and then had, had IQ experts do an analysis as well - or the Times did," the NBC anchorman explained. "And they concluded that George W. Bush might be a point or two higher than John Kerry in IQ." Brokaw continued:

"And John Kerry was caught a little off guard, he said. 'Well, more power to him. I thought that, that was not public.' And when the interview was over he said, 'I must have been drinking the night before I took that military aptitude test.'"

I confess that it would surprise me if (by conventional intelligence tests) as young men Bush was smarter than Kerry--although Kerry may not be as smart as people think he is, and Bush is certainly smarter than people think he is.

Glenn Reynolds' column for the Guardian newspaper makes this observation:

America, and the west in general, has somehow bred a class of elites who think that their own countries, and societies, are presumptively wrong. Hit from outside, their first instincts are to look inward - to conspiracies, or to some sort of flaw that might justify the attacks. Say what you will of the old-time elites, but at least they did not suffer from this vice.

It has been hard for Bush to run a war in the face of this sort of attitude. I think that it will be impossible for Kerry to do so, since it is endemic among many of his strongest supporters.

In one of his essays, George Orwell wrote about those "sophisticated" people in England whose position was that their own country was always wrong, whom he argued were just as rigid and unthinking as those who thought that their own country was always right.

Powerline is reporting that the Tom Daschle campaign is flat-out lying to voters saying that "John Thune is attacking" Daschle's wife:

The Daschle campaign, desperate at finding itself behind in the polls, has resorted to an especially low form of "push polling." Our correspondent reports:

am here in Brookings, South Dakota [and] just thought I'd pass on the following information if you haven't seen or heard it. The Daschle campaign is having people claiming to be pastors and ministers calling local South Dakotans asking them whether the fact the "John Thune is attacking Linda Daschle" bothers them or makes them uncomfortable. When one constituent peppered the "pastor" with questions about his hometown, where he lived - it was apparent this "pastor" was not from South Dakota at all.

I called the Daschle campaign in Brookings posing as a sympathetic constituent, and they CONFIRMED to me that these calls are being made.

Needless to say, Thune isn't attacking Linda Daschle. But for Tom Daschle, this is what his long career in the Senate has come down to--hoping to eke out a victory through whining, false claims, and fraud.

I'm not making a lot of predictions this year, but I'm going out on a limb on this one--Thune will win.

If true, this is devastating. The campaign admitted to Powerline's respondent that it was doing this dirty trick. Again, if true, a free press is needed to expose this fraud to the voters.

UPDATE: A reader (Daniel Wolf) sent this email, which (if true) directly supports the Daschle campaigns statements about the Thune campaign (though not the claim that the Daschle caller was a fellow South Dakotan):

My great aunt in Yankton, S.D. has received two phone calls claiming that Linda Daschle was an abortionist. The Daschle campaign is completely correct on this.

Between 15,000 and 20,000 Milwaukee residents who registered to vote in recent months have not had their forms processed and may find themselves unregistered at the polls Tuesday, Mayor Tom Barrett said today....

Poll workers will already be reviewing about 5,500 addresses where buildings may not exist as a result of an agreement reached Sunday in response to a Republican complaint.

When you vote this Tuesday remember to legalize gay marriage by supporting John Kerry. We need John Kerry in order to make gay marriage legal for our city. Gay marriage is a right we all want. It's a basic Democrat principle. It's time to move forward and be progressive. Without John Kerry, George Bush will stop gay marriage. That's why we need Kerry. So Tuesday, stand up for gay marriage by supporting John Kerry.

"The Democratic National Committee is making fraudulent phone calls claiming that I have endorsed Senator Kerry. Nothing could be further from the truth, and I demand that they stop immediately.

"Senator Kerry opposed the Reagan defense build-up that won the Cold War. Senator Kerry opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. Senator Kerry proposed billions in intelligence cuts after the first attack on the World Trade Center. Senator Kerry voted against funds to equip our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan with supplies like body armor and ammunition.

"I am supporting President Bush for reelection, because he is the candidate who has demonstrated the conviction needed to defeat terrorism. In contrast to the President's steadfast determination to defeat our enemies, Senator Kerry has a record of weakness that gives me no confidence in his ability to fight and win the War on Terror. His attempt to make up for these deficiencies by falsifying my endorsement only confirms my impression that he is not the man we need to lead our nation."

In Lancaster County, Pa., Republican officials said bogus phone calls have gone to at least a dozen elderly voters, alleging they are ineligible to vote. The calls appeared to target Republicans, said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who called them "an outrageous effort on the part of someone to try to repress the vote."

Registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats in Lancaster County more than a 3-to-1 margin.

GOP officials, meanwhile, have been getting reports of phone calls being made by a person who says he's representing the Bush campaign, and then unlooses a string of swear words. Another phone call is said to tell voters they've been drafted for military service because Bush needs them for the war in Iraq.

People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? ...

No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

No-one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred....

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr. did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr. Did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?

Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.

This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.

And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.

You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.

The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. ...

At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he [Bush, Sr.] was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.

So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretense of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two Mujahideen to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. ...

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinizes the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results. ...

And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. (When they pointed out that) for example, al-Qaida spent $500 000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than 500 billion dollars.

Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahideen recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the blee-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.

It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Haliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is...you.

It is the American people and their economy. ...

And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him, "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."

But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.

So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying, "Like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth"

So I say to you, over 15 000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10 000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.

Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money. ...

Finally, it behooves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.

Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say, "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision." It is as if they were telling you, the people of America, "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes," And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry, "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."

As has been said, "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

And know that, "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.

In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida.

No.

Your security is in your own hands. And every [U.S.] state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All Peace be Upon he who follows the Guidance.

As I posted below (here and here), the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has determined that the initial translation of Bin Laden's tape was in error. According to both MEMRI and an Al-Qaeda website monitored by MEMRI, Bin Laden in effect offered peace to US blue states that voted for Kerry and warned red states with violence. The New York Post covers the same ground and adds a few details:

Osama bin Laden warned in his October Surprise video that he will be closely monitoring the state-by-state election returns in tomorrow's presidential race — and will spare any state that votes against President Bush from being attacked, according to a new analysis of his statement. The respected Middle East Media Research Institute, which monitors and translates Arabic media and Internet sites, said initial translations of a key portion of bin Laden's video rant to the American people Friday night missed an ostentatious bid by the Saudi-born terror master to divide American voters and tilt the election towards Democratic challenger John Kerry.

MEMRI said radical Islamist commentators monitored over the Internet this past weekend also interpreted the key passage of bin Laden's diatribe to mean that any U.S. state that votes to elect Bush on Tuesday will be considered an "enemy" and any state that votes for Kerry has "chosen to make peace with us."

The statement in question is when bin Laden said on the tape: "Your security is up to you, and any state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

That sentence followed a lengthy passage in the video in which bin Laden launches personal attacks on the president.

Yigal Carmon, president of MEMRI, said bin Laden used the Arabic term "ay-wilaya" to refer to a "state" in that sentence.

That term "specifically refers to an American state, like Tennessee," Carmon said, adding that if bin Laden were referring to a "country" he would have used the Arabic word "dawla."

MEMRI also translated an analysis of bin Laden's statement from the Islamist Web site al-Qal'a, well known for posting al-Qaeda messages, which agreed that bin Laden's use of the word "ay-wilaya" was meant as a "warning to every U.S state separately."

"It means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president, it means that it chose to fight us and we will consider it an enemy to us, and any state that will vote against Bush, it means that it chose to make peace with us and we will not characterize it as an enemy," the Web site said, according to MEMRI's translation.

A reader writes to point out that the new translation of Bin Laden's threat (interpreted by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) as Bin Laden threatening to attack states that vote for Bush and pass over states that vote for Kerry) also brings Bin Laden even further in line with Michael Moore.

As Larry Ribstein recently reminded us (tip to Althouse), on September 12, 2001 Moore was skeptical whether Bin Laden had done the attacks and suggested that it made no sense for Bin Laden to attack in New York and Washington, DC, because these areas did not vote for Bush:

In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race — you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all. . . . .

Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California — these were places that voted AGAINST Bush! Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity...Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in.

If the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) and the Islamist website translated by MEMRI are right in their translations and interpretations, then sometime over the last three years, Bin Laden has recognized Michael Moore's "insight" that it would make no sense to kill people in states that didn't vote for Bush. Moore, of course, after making his bizarre and creepy comments, quite emphatically calls it "insanity" to kill "anyone" in this way.

[UPDATE. Yigal Carmon of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has a new translation of the Bin Laden tape, an interpretation that he also confirms by quoting from a similar analysis on an Islamist website that favors Bin Laden. This MEMRI news release was posted on NRO.] According to a shocking story on NRO, an Islamist website is claiming [as is MEMRI] that the Bin Laden tape did carry a threat against any U.S. state that voted for Bush (tip to INDC). NRO [reprinting MEMRI] quotes the site and argues:

The tape of Osama bin Laden that was aired on al-Jazeera on Friday, October 29 included a specific threat to "each U.S. state," designed to influence the outcome of the upcoming election against George W. Bush. The U.S. media in general mistranslated the words "ay wilaya" (which means "each U.S. state") to mean a "country" or "nation" other than the U.S., while in fact the threat was directed specifically at each individual U.S. state. This suggests some knowledge by bin Laden of the U.S. electoral-college system. In a section of his speech in which he harshly criticized George W. Bush, bin Laden stated: "Any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

The Islamist website Al-Qal'a explained what this sentence meant: "This message was a warning to every U.S. state separately. When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, 'Every state will be determining its own security, and will be responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has chosen to make peace with us, and we will not characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization, Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body, to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and those who fight for us, so that he doesn't treat all American people as if they're the same. This letter will have great implications inside the American society, part of which are connected to the American elections, and part of which are connected to what will come after the elections."

Another interesting aspect of the speech is the fact that while bin Laden makes his specific threat to each U.S. state, the speech also offered an election deal to the American voters in an attempt to influence the election by these means, rather than influencing it through terrorist attacks. This peace offer is a theme that follows up on his April speech directed to Europe, in which he offered a truce. The Islamist website Al-Islah explains: "Some people ask 'what's new in this tape?' [The answer is that] this tape is the second of its kind, after the previous tape of the Sheikh [Osama bin Laden], in which he offered a truce to the Europeans a few months ago, and it is a completion of this move, and it brings together the complementary elements of politics and religion, political savvy and force, the sword and justice. The Sheikh reminds the West in this tape of the great Islamic civilization and pure Islamic religion, and of Islamic justice...."

Not being able to translate the passages myself, I can't evaluate them. But perhaps a Volokh Conspiracy reader can enlighten us about whether the US media's translation is the better one or whether the Islamist website has the better translation.

UPDATE: OK, things are clearer to me now. The new translation is not just from an Islamist website, but more importantly from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which describes itself as "an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East." I have read their translations before, but didn't recognize the acronym. The NRO article I quoted is not written by NRO, but rather is a press release/alert sent out by MEMRI and written by its president, Yigal Carmon. So MEMRI is asserting the same translation of the relevant passage as an Islamist website that MEMRI also translates and quotes. Here is Bin Laden as translated by MEMRI:

"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al-Qa'ida. Your security is in your own hands, and any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security."

This interpretation makes sense of Bin Laden's statement that your security is not in Bush or Kerry's hands, but in your own. In short, here is the interpretation of both MEMRI and the Islamist site: Bin Laden is threatening that if your state votes for Kerry, your security will be respected by Bin Laden, but if your state votes for Bush, your state's security will not. As the Islamist website quoted above suggests, this is similar to the truce offer made to European countries that were willing to drop their opposition to Al Qaeda.

The New York Post is reporting that the unaired portions of the Bin Laden tape make clearer his opposition to Bush, the success of the Afghan election, and the success of the US military in restricting Bin Laden's actions. Bin Laden also follows the Michael Moore-Teresa Kerry line that it's all about oil:

Osama bin Laden's newest tape may have thrust him to the forefront of the presidential election, but what was not seen was the cave-dwelling terror lord talking about the setbacks al Qaeda has faced in recent months. Officials said that in the 18-minute long tape — of which only six minutes were aired on the al-Jazeera Arab television network in the Middle East on Friday — bin Laden bemoans the recent democratic elections in Afghanistan and the lack of violence involved with it.

On the tape, bin Laden also says his terror organization has been hurt by the U.S. military's unrelenting manhunt for him and his cohorts on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

A portion of the left-out footage includes a tirade aimed at President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, claiming the war in Iraq is purely over oil.

The tape also sparked some concern that an attack aimed at disrupting Tuesday's election may be planned.

But those who have seen the tape have said there was no specific information regarding an attack.

"We are taking this very seriously," said one counterterrorism official. "This is cause for great concern and we are certainly going on higher alert because of this."