OBL owns the American political process ... Kerry Says bin Laden Tape Gave Bush a Lift By ADAM NAGOURNEY Published: January 31, 2005 WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 - Senator John Kerry said on Sunday that the attacks of Sept. 11 were the "central deciding thing" in his contest with President Bush and that the release of an Osama bin Laden videotape the weekend before Election Day had effectively erased any hope he had of victory. In an interview on the NBC program "Meet the Press," Mr. Kerry allowed that he and his campaign had made "some mistakes," saying in particular that he had been too slow to respond to attacks on his Vietnam War record by other Vietnam veterans. But over all, Mr. Kerry argued that he had done remarkably well in competing against a sitting president in a time of war, saying he had run a "great campaign." He minimized the scope of Mr. Bush's victory, as well as the mandate the president could claim going into his second term. "If you take half the people at an Ohio State football game on Saturday afternoon and they were to have voted the other way, you and I would be having a discussion about my State of the Union speech," Mr. Kerry said, referring to the 120,000-vote margin by which he lost in Ohio. He added: "I am proud of the campaign. And if you look at what we did in states, I mean, millions of new voters came into the process. I won the youth vote. I won the independent vote. I won the moderate vote." Mr. Kerry was calm and confident in his first televised interview since his defeat. The interview underlined his effort to position himself as a leader of the opposition to Mr. Bush in Congress, and strongly suggested that Mr. Kerry might run for president again in 2008, though he said he had given no thought to the possibility. Mr. Kerry described Mr. Bush's victory as small, and criticized his efforts in Iraq and on Social Security, saying the election did not give the president license to push through major new programs. "The difference in this race was 18 electoral votes, 50,000, 60,000 people changing their votes in one state," he said. "That is a mandate for unity, not a mandate to go rushing off to change Social Security, not a mandate to ignore the fiscal crisis of our country, not a mandate to sort of pick some ideological hot buttons and start punching them." Mr. Kerry cautioned against drawing too much immediate significance from the election in Iraq on Sunday, noting the absence of a big turnout in parts of the country. "No one in the United States should try to overhype this election," he said. "This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation, and it's going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community than this administration has been willing to engage in." Reflecting on the campaign, Mr. Kerry said the release of the videotape by Mr. bin Laden on the weekend before the Nov. 2 election had reinforced what had been Mr. Bush's biggest advantage. "I believe that 9/11 was the central deciding issue in this race," he said. "And the tape - we were rising in the polls up until the last day when the tape appeared. We flat-lined the day the tape appeared and went down on Monday." He dismissed criticism by Democrats that he had ended the race with about $15 million left in his campaign account. Asked by the program's host, Tim Russert, if spending "a few more dollars" in Ohio might have made the difference, Mr. Kerry responded: "There was no request for them. Could it in retrospect? It's conceivable, but there was no demand at that point in time. People thought they had what they needed."
well. . DUH!!!! Rocket River timing is everything. . . Bin Laden timed it perfectly OCTOBER SURPRISE BABY
Not at all, but it's undeniable that each one has reaped enormous political benefits from the actions of the other and the reactions thereto.
Can't we merge this thread with the other idiotic conspiracy thread located in the Hangout? They seem kind of redundant.
Do you deny that both have profited enormously? Bin Laden is a popular figure in manyArab countries despite being a mass murderer - and has become markedly more so after the invasion of Iraq and other misadventures. There is documented proof of this, as well as of Bush's popularity soaring after Bin Laden attacks statement. Do you deny this? I don't see how you can. And to address your question, Al Qaeda affiliated groups did endorse Bush explicitly, after all he created their newest jihad: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114489,00.html Bush and Bin Laden need each other - do you ever read their speeches? They speak the same language - good and evil, crusades, cataclysmic struggles - they are peas in a pod, but with a role reversal.
It would have taken a lot of effort since you were espousing a position that was very close to indefensible.
i know...good john kerry would have solved all our problems. he's be smoking dope with bin laden in a cave working on a truce, i'm sure.
No, he wouldn't have solved all problems, and quite possibly wouldn't have solved any. That's about as ridiculous a statement as somebody trying to claim that Bush and bin Laden haven't profited from the other's actions and the reactions thereto.
so to clarify...you think Bin Laden purposely released that tape to help Bush win the election? i'm just asking.
No. I never said that, I said this: ". . . it's undeniable that each one has reaped enormous political benefits from the actions of the other and the reactions thereto." Please, don't try to pin me down like that, I invented that game, and I'm too smart to get caught by it . . . most of the time.
ok..then i object to every post you've made here as non-responsive. here's the post i responded to... "well. . DUH!!!! Rocket River timing is everything. . . Bin Laden timed it perfectly OCTOBER SURPRISE BABY" this is the point i was rolling my eyes at.
