INTRODUCIN' – AT 7:52 A.M. ET:  We thought we'd report this so you know where to send your congratulations and gifts.  From CNN:

(CNN) -- An Egyptian who was once a Special Forces officer has been chosen "caretaker" leader of al Qaeda in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, according to a source with detailed knowledge of the group's inner workings.

Al Qaeda's interim leader is Saif al-Adel, who has long played a prominent role in the group, according to Noman Benotman. Benotman has known the al Qaeda leadership for more than two decades. He was once a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a militant organization that used to be aligned with al Qaeda, but in recent years renounced al Qaeda's ideology.

Benotman told CNN that based on his personal communications with militants and discussions on jihadist forums, al-Adel, also known as Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi, had been chosen interim chief of al Qaeda because the global jihadist community had grown restive in recent days about the lack of a formal announcement of a successor to bin Laden.

I can understand that.  You always want someone to look up to, and someone who knows how to fly planes into buildings.

According to Benotman, this was not a decision of the formal shura council of al Qaeda, because it is currently impossible to gather them in one place, but was rather the decision of six to eight leaders of al Qaeda in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area. Al-Adel was already one of the top leaders of the group.

COMMENT:  One of the great myths that some have lived by is that Al Qaeda was about bin Laden.  Al Qaeda is about an ideology, and Americans still haven't absorbed the implications of that ideology.  In part this is due to the nature of mainstream media reporting, which emphasizes what people are against, rather than what they're for.  Recall that, after 9-ll, some American hand-wringers wandered around asking, "Why do they hate us?"  It's one of those questions the left loves to ask, for it puts the focus on our alleged sins.  What we should have been asking is, "What do these people stand for?  What kind of world do they want?" 

If we apply those questions to the current "revolutions" in the Arab world, the answers that come back can be pretty frightening. 

Al Qaeda survives bin Laden because its ideology drives it.

May 18,  2011