The promised Osama bin Laden tribute tape to Abu Musab al Zarqawi surfaced early Friday, and it demonstrated that the al Qaeda leader can still generate headlines and dominate news cycles, at least temporarily. And he doesn’t need to say anything particularly earthshaking to do it. In the excerpts available at press time, bin Laden heaps the usual praise on Zarqawi — man of determination — lion of jihad — great knight and prince — yadda yadda. He calls the American raid that killed him “shameful,” perhaps a condemnation of it being an air attack instead of a face-to-face shootout. Or maybe just consistent with the Mujahedin Shura Council’s contention that the bombing was simply a random event, a chance result of routine Coalition bombing of Iraqi residential areas. On the other hand the Shura Council also said it was God’s will, so if the Coalition forces were agents of the divine power, where’s the shame in that? . . .

. . . It is ironic that in the years before 9/11 when bin Laden was releasing lengthy, substantive statements on important matters of al Qaeda objectives and strategy few people were paying attention; and now when he has the world’s ear all bin Laden can muster are empty threats, puerile mockery, and hollow clichés honoring fallen members of his ever-shrinking group of followers. None of the promised domestic attacks of the last five years have materialized. And since Zarqawi’s demise attacks on Coalition forces in Iraq have fallen by 15-20 percent. Osama is going to have to work a lot harder than this to prove he is still relevant.