Osama bin Laden is winning

Yes, although he is probably dead Osama bin Laden is winning his war against the United States and he's winning thanks to his ally, George W. Bush. I have thought this for some time and Robert Steinback of the Miami Herald agrees.
Fear destroys what bin Laden could not

One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.
If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.
Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat -- and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated.
If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them.
If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy.
That's no America I know, I would have argued. We're too strong, and we've been through too much, to be led down such a twisted path.

As we have discussed here often before it has been Dick Cheney's goal to create an imperial presidency for much of his life. It was Osama bin Laden and 911 that gave him the tool to pull it off. That tool was fear. And he has had almost limitless help from the corporate media. Howard Kurtz tells us today how Bush Presses Editors on Security.

President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.

The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.

For most of the reign of the imperial George W. Bush the media has been nothing but part of the administration's propaganda machine. Jefferson's words of over 200 years ago seem true today.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.