[x-factor]

If he were dead, there'd be no way for AQ to contain the news or the infighting. I think he hasn't been on TV because AQ has not had any substantial victories to crow about and they don't want UBL's imaged mired in the day-to-day stuff.

In American electoral politics we have the tradition of "VP as hatchetman" meaning on the campaign trail the Presidential candidate sticks to a rosey positive message while the VP goes hard negative on the other candidate (Eisenhower-Nixon was the quintessential example of this). I think what AQ is doing is kind of the same thing. Most of what Zawahiri does these days is talk trash (and equivocate about the battlefield pastings they're taking) on Iraq and Afghanistan and criticize other Muslims (he loves to scold Hamas) for not carrying out jihad in an "appropriate manner".

They take a longer view of the conflict and they want to preserve UBL as a larger-than-life "unifying symbol of victory for all Muslims" and to do that they can't be trotting him out every month to take out the garbage. If there's a spectacular attack or somekind of battlefield "success" for AQ, then I think you'll see UBL again.