After almost five fruitless years, Osama bin Laden has turned up, not unexpectedly at a right-wing protest. Bin Laden, as is his wont, exhorted the small crowd to support republican policies, much as he did when his campaign video of October 2004 threw the election to George Bush by the narrowest of margins. In this case, bin Laden showed his face at a bit of derangement organized by one Michelle Malkin, a right-wing shrieking head, most notable for bashing illegal immigrants even though her own American citizenship stems from the overstaying of a temporary visa by her parents. Malkin provided the occasion for Osama's return to New York; not in handcuffs, as we would like it, but as an honored guest of right-wing anklebiters.

A friend in need, as they say.

OK, so it wasn't really Osama, though that would have no doubt come as welcome news to the castrated CIA, recently stripped of its dedicated bin Laden unit by an administration that never took the terrorist mastermind seriously in the first place. "Osama bin Laden determined to attack inside the United States, ah, whatever", to quote George Bush's policy decisions.

No, just as so much in this so-called 'War on Terror', which we're fighting, presumably, by selling our ports to one of two countries that recognized the Taliban, by cutting funding for actual terror targets like New York City by 40%, by having republican Senators declare the killing of American soldiers in Iraq as something that cries out for amnesty, and by dissolving the CIA unit dedicated to the capture of Al Qaeda's leader, this was a fake Osama. Par for the course. What I find myself wondering about is just how many of the onlookers to this depraved partisan spectacle lost friends and family in the attacks; quite a few, I imagine. The survivors are everywhere in this Democratic City; not that Malkin and her ilk mind what they have to say, mind you.

One day, most likely after Democrats have liberated this country from the fat, corrupt Beltway ruling class that currently holds sway, people like Malkin, in short, we'll see Osama marched in shackles into the Federal Courthouse in Lower Manhattan to face justice. Until then, we'll have to be lectured by fake Osamas sputtering right-wing talking points at the invitation of an unhinged propagandist who is among us only by virtue of her mommy's disregard for United States law.