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Bin Laden’s Basement Tape
October 12-18, 2001
By John Powers / LA Weekly

Not long after President Bush finished his live White House speech announcing the strikes on Afghanistan, the networks began broadcasting the homemade concert video by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist supergroup. The whole thing was so perfectly timed that I half expected one of those little graphics to pop onscreen: "Battle of the Trust Fund Leaders." After all, the War on Terrorism is, among other things, a war of images.

Since September 11, Bush’s handlers have grown more skillful at portraying him as a wartime president. For Sunday’s speech, they put him in the Treaty Room, a symbol of peace, and sat him before a window, the Free World behind him all sunny and green; knowing that he’s uneasy with his hands, they quickly moved the camera in on his face. Over the last few weeks, Bush has learned to display some gravitas, even if he still lacks Tony Blair’s soothing lucidity. Where the British prime minister transforms an unwanted campaign against terrorism into a positive vision of the future, our president always seems to be dealing in negatives, from his routine use of "make no mistake" to Sunday’s deliberately Churchillian litany: "We will not waver, we will not tire," and so forth. Even when launching an assault by the world’s mightiest military power, Bush is on the defensive.
(More: LAWeekly.com News Source)
2001 © L.A. Weekly Media, Inc.

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