Kerry will argue that this reinforces the mistakes made at Tora Bora. His media surrogates will reinforce that and play reverse-psychology games: OBL really did this because he wants Bush to be reelected, because that’s good for recruitment, because Iraq is a quagmire, etc. And none of this will fly.

If voters go into the booth on Tuesday with the desire to fry Islamofascist thugs, they will rehire Bush as chef. Swing voters in Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest will react viscerally to this. They won’t buy reverse-psych mumbo-jumbo.

The release will overshadow the lower-than-estimated growth rate in the 3rd quarter, an announcement earlier today that Kerry and Edwards could have used to some effect in places such as Ohio during the coming news cycle. Instead, the tape shifts the attention back to the president’s strongest issue. Yes, the Tora Bora mythology gets trotted out again, but Bush surrogates are more credible on the issue (especially including Franks). Bottom line: if swing voters are seeing bin Laden’s face, they are thinking, “go sock him, Mr. President!” They are not thinking about Halliburton or the GDP.