It never fails to amaze me how infomation can be interpreted to suit one’s favour, and the ability of the US vice-president to successfully contradict himself… here are a few, and all in a single article in today’s news.

1) Turn an ultimatum into a plea for truce.
In the headlines, US rejected a truce offer from Osama B. Laden himself. OBL offered a “long-term truce” if Washington withdrew its military presence from Iraq and Afghanistan – as the press put it.

Does this look like a truce offer to you? It sure doesn’t look like one to me. Sounds more like an ultimatum. “Quit Iraq and Afghanistan or more Americans DIE”.

2) Interpret the preference to use audio over video as being weakened.
Also in the same article, Dick “Heart bypass” Cheney said the (audio) message showed that the terrorist network had been driven “underground” and was now unable to produce video messages.

After the scrutiny on his previous video release, do you thing OBL is stupid enough to make another one that might tell you where he is? Besides, how difficult could it be to produce a video? If you lose the capacity to produce a video message, there is no way you can still have the capacity to produce an audio one. They operate in the same way, just press record and talk. No recorder? Well, there’s nothing you can’t buy from eBay ya?

3) Doubts the authenticity of the audio clip, saying that it could be cut-and-pasted from old clips.
…and Cheney said another question was whether it (the audio message) had been “pieced together” from past statements.

Hmm… OBL does not have the capability of video production, but certainly has the capability to edit a full message out of old clips! At which point did the walking heart bypass stopped using his brains?