Jesus, get a grip. It's a freakin' VIDEO TAPE.

Ever since the announcement was made that bin Laden was going to drop a new video on 9/11, I've been watching the slow build of dopey-ass rhetoric regarding the tape's imminent release. Rightard bloggers have been going slowly nuts over the past few days, and the idiocy seems to have reached its apex this afternoon with a statement by John McCain.

The release of the purported bin Laden video starkly reminds us that there is no greater responsibility for a president than to protect America from attack and to command our military forces in a time of war against a barbaric enemy -- an enemy plotting every day to kill Americans.

"Osama bin Laden and his henchmen must be hunted down -- and as president, I will. Al Qaeda terrorists and the violent, aggressive ideology they propagandize must be defeated across the globe, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, which bin Laden's top lieutenant calls al Qaeda's central battlefront against the United States. My presidency will be al Qaeda's worst nightmare.

"This is no time for equivocation and waffling from politicians on the need to succeed in Iraq. As Ronald Reagan would say, now is a time for choosing. With General Petraeus set to testify before Congress next week, we can choose to continue to support the new strategy and the real progress -- not apparent progress -- our troops have made against our enemies in Iraq. Or, we can choose the path of surrender by undermining our current military campaign through funding cutoffs and congressionally mandated troop withdrawals.

"You know where I stand. I believe you can't be serious about fighting the war on terror unless you are serious about fighting and defeating al Qaeda in Iraq. We can succeed if we don't lose our resolve."

Give me a fucking break.

I'll give McCain partial credit for vowing that he'd hunt down bin Laden in the (long-shot) event that he becomes president. It should have been Job One for bush, but he instead exploited the fact that bin Laden got away by stoking The Fear and further fleecing the rubes who fell for the lie that he was the least bit interested in stopping terrorism.

But McCain takes a good premise and smudges it until at the end you can't even tell what the fuck he's talking about. He starts by talking about hunting down bin Laden an ends up squawking about defeating Al Qaeda in Iraq - a completely different entity.

This tells me a couple of different things. First, it tells me that McCain, despite his bluster, has pretty much pissed his pants over the release of a goddamn video tape. A video tape.

For fucking fuck's sake, the man has apparently lost his mind. How else can you explain that he takes something so benign as a guy talking into a video camera and starts jabbering about 'a time of war' and 'plotting to kill Americans.' Other than giving McCain a chance to show the war that he has a Big Swinging War Dick just like Bush, it makes absolutely no sense.

Second, this statement makes it crystal clear that McCain is at least as willing s Bush - if not more willing than Bush - to exploit Osama bin Laden in order to keep the Iraq war going full speed ahead.

So Saint McCain has a combination of pants-pissing fear of video tape and an affinity for war bamboozlement. That's one scary combination right there.