Machiavellian machination suggests Uncle Walter. If so, it's become a self-inflicted wound

WorldNetDaily: Cronkite: Bush working with bin Laden:
"'So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.'"

If I had written this quote and falsely attributed it to Walter Cronkite, I would be accused of trying to make the old man look stupid, if not delusional. Yet, this is how Cronkite's remarks on Larry King Live have been reported.

It's hard to take drivel like this seriously, but let's try. The first problem is timing. Cronkite's former employer, CBS, was planning to air the al Qaqaa caca tonight (Sunday, October 31) on 60 Minutes. It would have been awfully risky to know that was coming and count on this UBL tape to counteract it. Of course, the al Qaqaa story did break early in the NY Times - according to some reports because it was leaked by a faction of the CIA upset that another faction of CIA had conspired with El Baradei and the IAEA to create the story for CBS' last-minute use. So, maybe we are supposed to believe that the CIA leak to the Times also alerted the White House to produce the UBL tape. Or, maybe the White House made the UBL tape well in advance to be unveiled at the opportune moment. And how did Al Jazeera TV get roped into this Republican plot? Of course, there is the larger problem of insinuating that bin Laden is under the control of Bush, or that they both answer to some higher authority.

This is the stuff of fantasy. Even Oliver Stone couldn't make this movie with a straight face, although Michael Moore might give it a try. Besides, it's way too risky, not Karl Rove's style at all. I have written before criticizing Rove's influence in this campaign, but he is way too smart to try a high-risk gamble like this.

Moreover, a recent report on Kerry's campaign polling on the issue of the UBL tape shows that it hurts Bush by reminding voters of Kerry's theme that Iraq is a distraction from the hunt for bin Laden. A thoroughly predictable reaction in my view, and one that Rove would have anticipated.