Inside the Beltway

Where oh where?

A familiar Washington parlor game is about to be reinstated: “Where’s Osama?”

As American troops ready themselves to be deployed to Afghanistan under the auspices of President Obama’s newly articulated inner mettle, the location of Osama bin Laden and his ilk will provide hours of fun for speculative journalists and pundits. White House spinmeisters can use the very visceral effect of bin Laden, the Taliban, al Qaeda, et al., cast in the role of enemy to deflect assorted criticism from Mr. Obama, now Nobel Peace prize winner turned wartime leader.

Hey, we’re escalating stuff to find Osama and his bunch, OK? So shut up.

But the Osama whereabouts. The press has squawked much about it. Witness this dispatch:

“One new account puts the terrorist in Europe using a false German or French passport. So says Washington-based journalist Atef Gawad, a correspondent for Saudi Arabia’s Al-Watan newspaper and other news organizations. … The Fox News Channel also reported that bin Laden had changed his appearance and was living incognito in Pakistan — but without the surgery. Fox said he had shaved his beard, put on a Western suit and scuttled his old combat fatigues.”

The account continues: “Al-Akhbar, a Pakistani newspaper, reported that bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had been shot ‘by their own consent’ in Kandahar the day the city fell to American troops and Afghan freedom fighters. … The Agence France-Presse news service, meanwhile, speculated that bin Laden has gone to the border mountains of Uzbekistan to the northwest, where he is being sheltered by Islamic militants sympathetic to his cause.”

And this: “The BBC has pronounced that bin Laden’s ‘trail has gone cold,’ though a BBC analyst has suggested Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Chechnya as possible bin Laden hideouts.”

Interesting possibilities all, most likely to resurface as the Afghanistan surge roars to life. Interesting too the date of the aforementioned story: Dec. 18, 2001.

I know, because I wrote it. So let the games begin. Again.

Young Reaganites

There’s still time for college students who believe in “freedom, American values and Constitutional principles” to apply for the Ronald Reagan College Leaders Scholarship Program. We’re talking scholarships up to $10,000 here, courtesy of the nonprofit Phillips Foundation.

A hundred college students will be selected, based on a 500-to-750-word essay that addresses leadership and the current “ideological climate” on campus. Judges include Thomas L. Phillips, chairman of Eagle Publishing; Becky Norton Dunlap of the Heritage Foundation; and Ronald E. Robinson, president of Young America’s Foundation.

Applications must be postmarked by Jan 15, 2010. For information, contact Jeff Hollingsworth, The Phillips Foundation, 1 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 620, Washington, D.C., 2001 (202/250-3887, ext. 628) or via e-mail: jhollingsworth@thephillipsfoundation.org

Be of good cheer

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