Bin Laden Dyed His Beard . . . Flubbed Lines in the Outtakes of His Videos . . . and Surfed Channels With a TV Remote

The U.S. Defense Department released five videos of OSAMA BIN LADEN to media outlets over the weekend, and some of the stuff in them is pretty weird . . . but not in the way you'd think.

--There's nothing violent or graphic, and there's no sound. They're just videos bin Laden made of himself while he was holed up in his compound for five years.  They're a small part of the intelligence haul seized during last Sunday's raid.

--Here's the weird part: They show him with a grey beard, hunched over on the floor of a shabby room, wrapped in a blanket and wearing a black knit cap, rocking back and forth . . . while he's CHANNEL SURFING with a remote in his hand.

--In other words, instead of a terrifying terrorist mastermind, he looks like a frail old man. The TV he's watching looks like a piece of junk from a '70s yard sale. And the images he's viewing are of HIMSELF and PRESIDENT OBAMA on satellite TV.

--The idea is that he seems fixated on how he was depicted in the media. Not just because he watched himself on TV, but because he dyed his beard in the OTHER four videos, which are basically outtakes of the threatening messages he used to release.

--In one of those videos, he messes up a line and has to re-do it, and in another he's standing in front of a wrinkled sheet.

--Not exactly flattering stuff, so people think the release of the videos was meant to make him seem like a regular person . . . instead of a rallying symbol for the other jihad psychos still out there.