Al-Qaida No. 2 Softens Image, Tries SNL Approach

Zawahri Reportedly Negotiating For News Anchor Job on MSNBC or as Possible Stand-In for Stephen Colbert

Ayam al-Zawahri, Al-Qaeda's No. 2 man, this week sent a message that left many wondering whether a change is happening inside Al Qaeda. In the message, al-Zawahri said, "America has put on a new face, but its heart full of hate, mind drowning in greed and spirit which spreads evil, murder, repression and despotism continue to be the same as always." He then used a slur, calling Pres.-elect Obama, as well as Colin Powell and Condi Rice, "house negroes," a term used by Obama hero, Malcolm X, whose footage was interspersed throughout the unique, cryptic ramblings, meant to refer to a black who was complacently serving his white masters.

The Lumps staff, with our expert panel on Islamic religion and Arabic, has determined that the entire monologue is, in effect, a crude, yet subtle attempt at self-parody, and is more like an imitation of a David Letterman routine than your typical Islamic jihadi mullah rant extolling the glories of genocide. It seems Al Qaeda leadership have shifted their publicity campaign to brilliantly following the old Confucian axiom - "You can catch flies with honey, not with vinegar." Speculation is that Al Qaeda, sensing a paradigm shift in the American political landscape, has accordingly shifted its approach at winning the hearts and minds of Americans. Moving away from using such previous tactics as terrorism, beheadings, insults and mass murder, to convince Americans and westerners to submit to Allah, they are now using self-deprecating humor. Furthermore, we have received direct information that ex- SoCal native, couch potato, and metal rocker turned Al Qaeda terrorist, Adam Gadahn, is advising bin Laden and Ayam on American culture and the use of snarky humor to influence and promote the Al Qaeda agenda to the American public. The change signals a more pragmatic approach to jihad, mercifully hoping that 300 million Americans will be convinced to willingly submit to Allah, instead of having to be evaporated in a nuclear holocaust, which would be a tragic financial loss considering the zizziya tax required by the Quran on subjugated kaffirs.

Evidence shows that Osama bin Laden's trend towards a more humanized, even Americanized approach to jihad has perhaps been developing for more time than most western experts had previously suspected. Recently, Kola Boof, 37, the Sudanese poet and novelist who claims to have once been bin Laden's sex slave, writes in her autobiography, Diary of a Lost Girl, which is excerpted in the September Harper's: "He told me Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen." Boof - who wrote for the soap opera "The Days of Our Lives" until she was axed last month - continues, "He said that he had a paramount desire for [Houston] and although he claimed music was evil, he spoke of someday spending vast amounts of money to go to America and try to arrange a meeting." So in other words, it seems in contrast to Zawahri's attempt at winning the American public through satire and wit, bin Laden's strategy is even more well-known to the US public - bedding a famous celebrity and then getting a fawning interview on the View or The National Enquirer, and perhaps a good seat at the Oscars or Grammies.

While we on the Left have always vehemently asserted that the supposed danger of Al Qaeda has been wildly exagerrated by the Rovian neo-con conspiratorialists in Washington DC, and that some of Al Qaeda's arguments are actually quite well-reasoned and worth considering, this welcome news of a newer humane and comedic jihadi approach is confirmation of our previous perceptions - that these jihadists are not the dangerous, insane, fanatically violent threats to humanity as the neocon Bushies have made them out to be. They are much like we are.

As for us at Lumps from the Left, we say, "Yo, you rock Ayam!" Give us more!