On the latest ‘sighting’ of 21st century America’s great white whale

The news that Osama bin Laden is — according to a NATO official — in hiding in Northwest Pakistan hardly qualifies as a shock. That said, the resurfacing of rumors about the location of the greatest villain of our age reminds us just what a massive story the resurfacing of the man would be. In some respects, the fact that bin Laden is still alive, while a black eye for U.S. intelligence, provides President Obama with what has to be the greatest "Get Out of Jail Free" card in the world. Find and capture or kill Osama at any time during the next two years and Obama sails into a second term.

Oversimplification? Perhaps. But the emotional impact of writing the final chapter on the bin Laden story would be so great, and the coverage of that final chapter would be so over the top, that it’s hard to imagine another single development on the positive side of the ledger that could provide greater political lift for the president.

Of course, if catching the elusive al Qaeda mastermind were so easy, it would have been done during the past 10 years. Indeed, the U.S. government has been trying to dispatch him for considerably longer than that — since the Clinton years. That a guy the size of an NBA guard, one with supposedly complex medical needs, who happens to be the most wanted man on the planet earth, has managed to go to ground in a way that makes Saddam’s trip down the spider hole seem poignantly amateurish, is really quite a remarkable achievement. Even more amazing is that despite the fact that he has been out there on the lam for a decade, virtually no one on either side in fractious, no-holds-barred world of U.S. politics is willing to suggest that not finding him is a failure. (With the exception of perhaps Joan Rivers who, as chronicled in the recent documentary about her life, A Piece of Work, suggests that as a dialysis patient he ought to have been fairly easy to find in a country like Afghanistan which, she suggested, had only one electric outlet. Just follow the cord is her recommendation.)

The latest Osama story came from an anonymous senior NATO official in a comment to CNN. It suggested that, cozily, Osama and his number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, were leaving nearby each other in comparatively comfortable conditions in villages in the northwest region of Pakistan. The report suggested the two were being protected by locals and the ever-helpful Pakistani secret services who, apparently, are a kind of welcome wagon for terrorists who seek to settle down in what seem to be the suburbs of choice for top Death-to-America execs looking to settle down close to their friends. Call it Larchmontistan.

Naturally, the Pakistanis, who are apparently rather slow to respond to the presence of global evil geniuses, managed a lightning response to the CNN story, denying it, reading again from well-thumbed cue cards. "Stories like this keep surfacing," mouthed Deputy Information Minister Samsam Bokhari, "Our reaction from day one to such stories is clear — he is not here." Despite the fact that virtually no one agrees with Pakistan’s official "Osama who?" conclusions, Bokhari went on to say, "If NATO and others have any information about Osama or his deputy or other terrorists they should share with us. If we get credible information, we will take action against them in accordance with Pakistani laws." What he didn’t say was that the Pakistani law in question would probably involve sending along a roasted goat and gift basket of Saudi dates and sesame candies to make the old guy feel more at home. Or that while half the Pakistani secret service would be contemplating how to act on the information about Osama’s location, the other half would be finding him new digs in nearby Scarsdale-abad.

Thanks to their efficiency and his own nimbleness, it is likely that Osama bin Laden will remain — for Barack Obama and the current generation of American leaders — a combination of Moby Dick, a unicorn, and the rumored colonies of Nazi war criminals living in the mountains of Paraguay, an obsession and the greatest prize any of them seem likely never to claim.

But, oh, what a day it would be if Osama or his protectors were ultimately to slip up: an historical punctuation mark much needed to put an end to one of the longest, ugliest, and most convoluted run-on sentences in modern history.