Fascinating development while I was out; veteran newsanchor Walter Cronkite stated that Karl Rove is behind Osama bin Laden:

Former CBSNEWS anchorman Walter Cronkite believes Bush adviser Karl Rove is possibly behind the new Bin Laden tape.

Cronkite made the startling comments late Friday during an interview on CNN.

Somewhat smiling, Cronkite said he is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing."

Interviewer Larry King did not ask Cronkite to elaborate on the provocative election eve observation.

With the incredible connections he's built up, as well as his superior intellectual firepower, his statement has to be worth taking seriously -- at least as a Democratic Party statement of ideology.

I say, let's for the sake of argument give Cronkite the benefit of the doubt, and treat his statement as true. If Karl Rove was behind the Osama bin Laden tape, then that means Michael Moore was right. It's been Osama Bush all along. And according to the Kerry doctrine, we must track down and kill Osama bin Laden and all of his operatives.

INCLUDING (possibly starting with) KARL ROVE! In fact, if Rove's giving marching orders to bin Laden, then he's a more important target than bin Laden!

Logically, I see no strategic alternative.

No wonder Larry King stopped asking questions.....

MORE: Ann Althouse (guest blogging at InstaPundit) thinks Cronkite was joking.

If so, then I say "Har!" Nice to know we have a a senior statesman with such a provocative sense of humor.

AND MOORE! Glenn Reynolds has returned just in the nick of time, with a link to much-needed food for thought about a very sophisticated three-way partnership between bin Laden, Rove, and Michael Moore:

...is there any doubt that some bootleg DVD or videotape of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" made it to a remote mountain village somewhere near the Afghan-Pakistan border?

Is there still time for Kerry to blow the whistle on this treacherous threesome?

OLD UPDATE: Moore as agent provocateur for Rove? It's not a new idea at all. Back in July, Glenn Reynolds offered to provide compelling evidence, but it seems there were no takers. (Can't say we weren't warned....)

Sigh.

STILL MORE: The Tehran Times has chimed in (confirming Walter Cronkite's and Michael Moore's speculations about a bin Laden/Bush partnership) in a piece called "Bin Laden dancing to Bush’s tune":

TEHRAN (MNA) -- Only four days before the U.S. presidential election, suddenly a suspicious tape of Osama bin Laden is mysteriously “dropped off” at the Aljazeera office in Pakistan, warning of another September 11.

As the Republicans have been dogged by criticism of the futile attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, the disappearance of hundreds of tons of explosives in Iraq, and rising speculation about the possibility of vote-rigging, the airing of the videotape by the Aljazeera network seems to indicate that a premeditated plan devised by Bush administration neoconservatives is unfolding.

Even though some consider the tape detrimental to Bush, with the immediate confirmation of the voice by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), unlike in the past, and the immediate reaction by Bush, it becomes clear that everything is going according to schedule and that Bin Laden is dancing to Bush’s tune.

....if one day it becomes clear that Bin Laden worked for the Bush campaign, then we should pity the American people in particular and the whole world in general.