The PR team visits Osama.

Yesterday a stealth drone intercepted a bits of data from an Al Qaeda summit, apparently of Osama and his PR and research staff.

TEAM LEADER: Sheik, please make yourself comfortable. Can I get you a fresh dialysis stent, praise be upon it?

OSAMA: Praise be upon a stent?
(a beat)

TEAM LEADER: Oh, dear. That was all wrong, wasn’t it? Shall I behead myself?

OSAMA: (chuckling) Please, please. Of course not! Do you think I’m some kind of monster? I’ll have a toady behead you after the presentation.

TOADY: (excitedly) That is so wild! I had a dream just last night that I was asked to behead an infidel in our midst! It must be a sign of Allah’s will, peace be upon him.

(Osama smiles beatifically, and gestures to the Team Leader to continue.)

TEAM LEADER: Great, I’ll be brief then. The virgins get pouty when you make them wait (chuckles.) Now, as you know, we leaked a number of horrifying news nuggets last week. There was the news of our evil plan to destroy the economy with a cyber attack on the Great Satan’s financial institutions.

OSAMA: Yes, I bet that had them peeing into their Florsheim’s.

TEAM LEADER: Meanwhile we continued the usual bombings in Baghdad and uplinked video to Al Jazeera.

OSAMA: How’s that thing about getting Al Jazeera into the Great Satan’s cable system coming?

TEAM LEADER: We’ll get to that in a minute.

OSAMA: Sorry, sorry, go on.

TEAM LEADER: Meanwhile our cranky Imams continued their assault on profiling, making America feel guilty for not celebrating diversity.

OSAMA: Fantastic. Fine soldiers of Allah, those Imams. If Al Jaz were crankin’ in the U.S., we’d have a two-hour special on that every day.

TEAM LEADER: Yes, the dogs would feel so guilty they’d probably send our Imams a Christmas ham in apology. (Osama laughs, then winces. The Toady rushes to comfort him.) Sorry. Continuing then, we now have a U.S. representative insisting he be sworn in on the Koran.

OSAMA: Fan-freakin-tastic!

TOADY: Could we rig up another of those desecrated used Koran incidents? That would really give it some legs.

OSAMA: I just love that, really.

TOADY: Thank you, Sheik. I’m always trying to think outside the cave.

OSAMA: This all sounds excellent, Allah is great!

TEAM LEADER: Now, the Al Jazeera thing. You would think America would jump at the chance to combine its love for violence with reality TV. I mean, all the research points there. But, I’m beginning to think otherwise. Not only is Al Jaz getting no U.S. traction, but Americans seem to have shrugged off all elements of our recent PR push in favor of a more compelling story.

OSAMA: More compelling than the destruction of their economy? Unpredictable random violence, the rattling of Judeo-Christian values? What trumps that?

TEAM LEADER: Britney Spears not wearing underwear, Sheik. Please review my graphic of Technorati searches.

(a long beat)

(SFX: a distant goat, some ululating)

OSAMA: I don’t know how to attack that problem.

TOADY: We could have Zawahiri do his next video without any underwear.

TEAM LEADER: Well, that would be an attention-getter, especially if he shaved his goods, but I feel it would distract from the automatic weapon we always lean against the wall at the shoots.

OSAMA: True, we have a lot of equity in the weapon. It’s not a brand standard for nothing.

TEAM LEADER: Want me to set that up?

OSAMA: Yes, we’ll postpone your beheading until the next sweeps. In the meantime, see if you can dig up some Polonius.

TEAM LEADER: You mean polonium?

OSAMA: Goddamn my Western education!

TOADY: Yes, goddamn your Western education, Sheik!

OSAMA: Behead the toady.
(SFX: distant goat)