Daily Telegraph Endorses Bush

That's not a surprise, perhaps, but the editorial endorsing George Bush is eloquent. It recognizes the dominance of America's place in the world and the concomitant responsibilities, and takes a dim view of John Edwards's protectionist background. But on the topic of Bin Laden, it offers a reading of the video not unlike what I offered below:

"The video-taped message by Osama bin Laden released on Friday included a nauseating attack on the President who, this fanatical mass murderer said, left '50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone, because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important' - a contemptible reference to the fact that Mr Bush was in a Florida classroom when he heard the news of the World Trade Center atrocity. The fact that bin Laden's long-awaited "October surprise" was a captious video message rather than a fresh terrorist outrage is - we fervently hope - a sign that al-Qaeda's operational capacity has been seriously eroded by George W Bush's war on terror.

"But on one point, bin Laden could not have been more explicit. 'Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush,' he told the American people. The Islamic fundamentalists will continue their barbarous campaign, irrespective of who is in the White House. The question, then, is which of the two candidates is better qualified to be commander-in-chief as the war on terror proceeds."

It's conclusion: "Mr Kerry has done everything to encourage the charge that he is stranded in the world of September 10. 'We have to get back to the place we were,' he said this month, 'where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance.' That would no doubt be desirable. But nothing Mr Kerry has said suggests that he knows how to achieve this goal. The intellectual vacuum at the heart of his candidacy has profound implications for Britain's strategic interests and the lives of our troops: in both cases, this country would be better served by the re-election of Mr Bush."