Al Zawarhi Channels Harry Belafonte

Al Qaeda has now been reduced to this:

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites. The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in U.S. policies.

Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant Web sites, that Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

In al-Qaida's first response to Obama's victory, al-Zawahri also called the president-elect _ along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice _ "house Negroes."

Which prompted this from Adam Serwer: "There's been a lot of skepticism about an Obama victory shifting the Muslim world's view of the United States, but judging by this statement at the very least it's made Al Qaeda's efforts to develop a compelling rhetorical indictment of America visibly more difficult."

I'm reluctant to draw any sweeping lesson from this other than the obvious one that this is not going to win Zawahri many U.S. recruits.

Video here: