Tall Tales.

As the story of the once great bogeyman Osama Bin Laden's assassination traveled around the globe via main stream media outlets, and the blogosphere, my initial thoughts were that I would attempt to deconstruct the official version. It is clear now, given the multiplicity of accounts, with details of said accounts shifting about as rapidly as the Saharan sands, that attempting to do so is both impossible-which account to deconstruct, which details?- and, more importantly, unnecessary, since the aroma of grand falsehood surrounding this news reduces any such enterprise to an absurd tail chasing activity. Put another way, the authorities, and I use the word authorities advisedly, have done the job for us. Credibility vanished quicker than a flushed turd in a cruise ship commode as the "official" story seemed to change in key ways from hour to hour. Who to believe? What to believe? Answer: No one and nothing.

Many commentators have spoken on the curious timing of the release of this would be earth shaking assassination story, namely that the breaking news distracted the mainstream media from the fetid air of mendacity that was building in the wake of President Obama's release of his purported long form birth certificate. This isn't an entirely unreasonable hypothesis, but, equally, I am sure there is far more to the story regarding "why now." We won't have much of a clue about what more there might be behind what seems to be a considerable (yet botched) disinformation campaign until some time has passed.

But allow me to back up a tad. The likelihood, based on many accounts from a wide variety of individuals who could be expected to know, is that the great and none too lamented bogeyman, Osama Bin Laden, died years ago. Given my own predilections about what 9/11 was, and, more importantly, was not, I find the numerous testimonies that all coalesce around the idea that Osama Bin Laden died years ago far more compelling than the latest mad flurry of press releases purporting his assassination at the hands of a crack team of U.S. Navy Seals.

And, again, for the seemingly zillionth time, especially where officialdom is concerned, we have to decide if the recent overwhelming confusion, not to say incoherence, in the telling of the story of Osama Bin Laden is just a matter of tremendous incompetence on the part of the anointed story tellers, or if there is something more troubling at play. What comes through for me, above all else, is this: If someone wanted to create a scenario where their own credibility was called into play in a profoundly disturbing way, they could hardly have done a better job than with the release of the fabulous, and ever changing tale of Osama Bin Laden's demise.