OPINION Mark Steyn: Was it a mere seven days ago that I wrote in this space: "As for this Bush failed to get bin Laden business, 2½ years ago I declared that Osama was dead and he's never written to complain."
I should have left well alone. He's back, and complaining, rather petulantly.
"I am surprised by you," he admonishes the American people on his new video, evidently feeling he's still not being taken seriously.
So the "has-bin" is alive and wellish, and I've received a fair amount of mail mocking my contention that he's kicked the burqa and is pushing up daisycutters. And much of that mail then extrapolates from my Osama blunder to assert that, given my confident prediction of a Bush win tomorrow, Kerry's a shoo-in.
Well, we'll see about that one soon enough. On the matter of bin Laden, however, I remain sceptical.
He's waited three years to appear before the world and this is all he's got to say?
The video was delivered to al-Jazeera in Pakistan, and the Jazzers claim they broadcast everything they were given except a few minutes of camera set-ups - though some sources say the unseen footage includes threats against members of the Bush family.
As to what we did get to see, most of the "transcriptions" are of the English subtitles provided by al-Jaz. I'd be interested to see some forensic analysis of the Arabic. But, taking it at face value, it seems Osama has been quite the busy researcher while holed up in Waziristan. Many reporters commented on his reference to My Pet Goat, made famous by Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 as the book President Bush and that Florida grade school were deeply immersed in on the morning of September 11th.
But only Tim Blair, the great Australian wag, noticed the most salient fact.
This is what the bin man said: "It appeared to him [ Bush] that a little girl's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers."
Ha-ha. It's the way he tells 'em. But Blair pointed out that, unlike Michael Moore, who just used the book's title as a cheap gag at the President's expense, Osama went to the trouble of mastering the plot.
In My Pet Goat, the eponymous hero prevents his little friend's dad's car being stolen by butting the thieves.
If you go down to a polling station tomorrow and talk to the anti-Bush crowd, you'll notice that, despite having been doing the "Bush sat there reading My Pet Goat for seven whole minutes!" cracks to like-minded chums for six months, your average leftie windbag hasn't been motivated to find out anything about the book beyond the title.
Maybe Osama or his doppelladen just took a lucky shot: If it's a book about a goat, it's bound to involve plenty of butting.
Don't forget, this is a guy who lives in a cave in Waziristan, so he's no stranger to goat-butting.
If I were a Democrat, I would be deeply ashamed at the way my favourite talking-points have been taken up by my country's enemies.
Not just My Pet Goat, but the whole Bush stole Florida thing.
In the heat of partisan politics, the left has failed to understand that these are arguments that diminish not just their target but an entire political culture.
Whoever's writing Osama's scripts doesn't give a goat's butt over Jeb Bush and Florida recounts - or, as the bin man calls it, "the rigging experience" in Florida - but he's seen a Michael Moore bootleg and he's watched CNN and he's read month-old copies of the Guardian and he believes that this is the way you have to talk to Americans. He's condescending to them. That's unlikely to work.
At the same time, in relaunching himself as Omichael bin Mooren, he's diminished his own jihad.
If you compare this statement with his 2001 video at the start of the Afghan campaign or his 2002 "Letter to the American people", he sounds like a bigger flip-flopper than John Kerry.
In 2001, he was bitching about the fall of Andalusia in 1492; in 2002, his grievances ran on and on, starting with "the British handed over Palestine to the Jews" and moving on to Somalia, Chechnya, Kashmir, yada yada, before calling on the west to convert to Islam, scrap democracy, adopt Sharia, ratify Kyoto (really) and "reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gamblings, and trading with interest", which should make the Irish Times Christmas party a quieter affair.
Where'd that Osama go? This new one sounds more like Rodney King, the cause celebre of the Los Angeles black community who was beaten by the police on video and subsequently wondered, "Why can't we all just get along?"
That's the new Osama line: "Each state that does not harm our security will remain safe," he says affably. "We did not attack Sweden, for example."
As odd as the content is the style. There's none of the "In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful" stuff.
If this is Osama, he seems to be repositioning himself from holy warrior to torpid 1950s pan-Arab secular nationalist. Is that why he's dumped the camo-and-rifle look for the demure shaheed of a Gulf foreign minister?
I suggested a couple of weeks ago that these next few years would see the mainstreaming of jihad: from the difference in content, tone and design between Osama's 2001 video and whoever made this production, the marketing boys at al-Qaeda are already on that route.
"We don't believe anyone can argue about the newsworthiness of this latest Osama bin Laden recording," al-Jazeera spokesperson Jihad Ballout said.
Jihad Ballout? This statement sounds more like a Jihad Bailout.
"W. was clinging to his inane mantra that if we fight the terrorists over there, we don't have to fight them here," fretted New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, "even as bin Laden was back on TV threatening to come here."
Er, no. Not really. For three years al-Qaeda have issued blood-curdling video threats to "come here". In this latest one, they can barely talk the talk.
As to whether it makes any difference to tomorrow's election, I think not.
Americans are not Swedes and they don't want to be. They will vote for the least Swede-like candidate. Moderate Democrats made a huge mistake in allowing themselves to be annexed by Michael Moore's fever swamps. And so it seems have al-Qaeda.