Well, isn't that CONVENIENT

Convenient or bullshit: you decide.

A French regional newspaper quoted a French secret service report on Saturday as saying that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

L’Est Republicain printed what it said was a copy of the report dated Sept. 21 and said it was shown to President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and France’s interior and defense ministers on the same day.

“According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead,” the document said.

“The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of al-Qaida was a victim while he was in Pakistan on Aug. 23, 2006, of a very serious case of typhoid which led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs.”

The report, which was stamped with a “confidential defense” label and the initials of the French secret service, said Saudi Arabia first heard the information on Sept. 4 and that it was waiting for more details before making an official announcement.

Officials contacted by Reuters in Chirac’s and Villepin’s offices had no immediate comment.

A senior official in Pakistan’s interior ministry said: “We have no information about Osama’s death.”

So Bush's friends the Saudis are claiming that Osama Bin Laden, whom Bill Clinton actually DID try to kill (see entry below) and who George W. Bush didn't, has somehow managed to magically die of natural causes six weeks before a midterm election, the day before Bill Clinton's bitchslap of Chris Wallace reminding us that he at least TRIED to get Bin Laden rusn, and THE DAY AFTER McCain and Lindsey Graham decide that it's perfectly OK for torture, which has been banned by civilized societies for centuries, to become officially-sanctioned policy in the United States.

I can't decide whather to say "Dead, my ass" or "Natural causes, my ass."

Especially when we read THIS on Thursday:

According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an "October surprise" before the midterm elections.

"In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an 'October surprise' to help win the November congressional elections," reports Ronald Kessler for Newsmax.

"President Bush's political strategist is also saying that the final two weeks before the elections will see a blitz of advertising, and the Republican National Committee is deploying an army of volunteers to key locations to help the grass-roots effort and monitor the election," the article continues. "The RNC is offering to fly in volunteers and cover their expenses."

A few weeks ago, another conservative publication, The American Spectator, reported that White House staffers had "been talking up the possibilities of an 'October Surprise' or two leading into the mid-term elections."

Is this the "October Surprise"? It seems a bit early to be playing the Osama Death Card, but with Bush's numbers falling again, and an American public appalled at us being another torture nation, Rove may have felt he had to do something -- and revealing what according to reports is a death a month ago may have been the best card to play.

If true, the it's proof the Osama really IS George W. Bush's best friend. And if true, it means that the Bush Administration, lacking Saddam and Bin Laden with which to bludgeon the American people, will have to find a new boogeyman. My money's on Ayman Al Zawahiri (shadowy boogeyman), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (mandatory attack on yet another Middle Eastern Country boogeyman), or Hugo Chavez (waah waah says mean things about Our Fearless Leader boogeyman).

(cross-posted at Brilliant at Breakfast)