All this talk that Republicans are the ones to trust to fight terrorism--including that lame ad being hyped today (shown on CNN)--led me to recall a recent Dan Froomkin White House Briefing post that really shocked me. It shocked me not because of its content, but because few people seemed to pick up on the point and because it has actually been out there in the public domain for a long time. Please read the
the pertinent excerpt below the fold:
The White House View
Writing in Time, Mike Allen presents the White House press office's stance: "If Kim Jong-Il thought he was could take advantage of a president who was down politically, he may be in for a surprise. Osama bin Laden's electronic appearance in the closing week of the 2004 campaign didn't do much for John Kerry either. Republicans, while taking care to express appropriate concern about the possibility of an Asian arms race, said they were relieved to see Bush back in the bully pulpit, wearing his commander-in-chief hat and leading the world in pushing for punitive action by the U.N. Security Council. 'Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond,' Bush said this morning in the Diplomatic Reception Room, where a row of books added gravity. 'This was confirmed this morning in conversations I had with leaders of China, and South Korea, Russia, and Japan.'"
Stop for a moment, though, and consider two unsupported assumptions in those first two sentences: That Kim Jong-Il is rooting for Democrats in November, and that bin Laden was, too.
That may be what the White House would like you to believe, but without any substantiation -- and *as regards the latter point, considerable evidence to the contrary. As Ron Suskind wrote in his book, "The One Percent Doctrine," CIA analysts quickly concluded that the bin Laden video was designed to help Bush get reelected -- as Bush's policies were strengthening his position.*
During all the press coverage of Ron Suskind's book, I don't recall ever seeing this information. This seems to be a pretty important point: On the issue of terrorism, Bin Laden himself supports and has literally campaigned for George W. Bush and the GOP.
Did you guys (Kossacks) know about this? Doesn't this strike you as newsworthy? Froomkin wrote about this a couple of weeks ago. Suskind's book was pubished months ago. This is the first I've heard about it. Any thoughts? Any additional info on that CIA conclusion?