Crusader Codpiece

Digby has a great post up about how GWB is playing nicely into OBL's hands. Commenting on a Wapo article about how Bush "senses a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists, a war that he depicted as "a confrontation between good and evil"", Digby says:

I love this. He and his administation want to try people for treason for leaking to the papers about his illegal spying on US citizens and then he blurts out some babble that validates every stupid thing bin Laden preaches to his deluded followers. He might as well just call it a Christian Crusade and get it over with. He just framed his War On Terror in religious terms, which is very, very dumb.

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Meanwhile the president of the United States is holding court with a bunch of his sycophants characterizing the U.S. as being in the midst of a Christian crusade. Oy.

Why is it they do absolutely everything bass-askwards? It's a bad idea to base US policy on trash talk. We should not be making national security decisions on whether bin Laden will "think" we are weak. We are the United States of America and we are too big and powerful to be playing games like this.

On the other hand, it makes no sense to provide bin Laden and his ilk with ready made recruiting tools and propaganda for no good reason either. It is irresponsible for Bush to be characterizing this "war" in religious terms when it isn't true, it's purely for his own political purposes and it gives the terrorists ammunition.

The administration and its allies succumb to bin Laden's taunts when it comes to important matters of policy and then turn around and overtly help bin Laden recruit terrorists with ridiculous rhetoric about Great Awakenings and the war on terror. (Meanwhile, he's got his inane undersecretary of state for public diplomacy running around the mid-east talking about her experiences being a suburban soccer mom.)

If you didn't know better, you'd think that Osama bin Laden had George W. Bush wrapped around his little finger.