As I skimmed the transcript of the new bin Laden tape with its discussion of global warming, subprime credit woes, Noam Chomsky, Richard Perle, the low tax nirvana of Islam and a bunch of other stuff, I could not help feeling sad again about how we gave this joker a new lease on life by invading Iraq. Hannah Arendt spoke of the 'banality of evil'. This may only rise to the level of the ridiculousness of evil. And perhaps not even that.

I don't gainsay the danger or destructive power of the man. I still remember Rick Hertzberg's quote just after 9/11 that the attacks were as brilliant as they were evil. (This is from memory: so I may have the precise words wrong. But he well captured the way in which the horror and evil of the attacks were matched by their diabolical ingeniusness.) But as an articulator of a vision, an expounder of "Islamofascism," or whatever the new trademarked word is now, he's about as coherent and comprehensible as a 9th tier blogger or one of those whacks sitting on a stoop in Union Square talking about fascism and Texas oil barons before they get overcome by the shakes or decide to start collecting more aluminum cans.

If my predictive powers are still working right, I'm sure I'll catch flack for taking such a mocking attitude toward this man who has so much American blood on his hands. But this, I think, is only the flip side of the vaunted perch we insist on giving him, a insistence that is a paradoxical part of Bushism. They are tacit partners in creating the world in which we now live.