In the “Is Zarqawi still dead?” department —

A wave of bombings hit the oil city of Kirkuk on Tuesday, killing 14 people in what was seen as an attempt by al Qaeda to show that the death of its leader in Iraq would not stop it.

The bombings came a day after al Qaeda in Iraq named a successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a U.S. air strike last week, and vowed the new leader would press on with a campaign of suicide bombings and beheadings.

“The terrorists want to send a message that they are staying active despite the fact that Zarqawi was killed,” said Rizgar Ali, the head of Kirkuk’s governing council.

President Bush can rest assured that his lobotomized base will be distracted by the new villain, and will not notice that most of the violence in Iraq is not coming from al Qaeda or any facsimile thereof. Evil is so much easier to understand when the good guys and bad guys sort themselves into two opposing teams.

See also comments at TomDispatch.