The Unnamed Enemy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...ion/whbriefing

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Thursday, August 12, 2004; 11:19 AM

In his brand new campaign ad, President Bush vows to "bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again." (Here's the video. Here's the text.)

An enemy? Any enemy in particular??

Although there are certainly lots of enemies out there, public enemy number one is obviously al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

But Bush didn't mention bin Laden -- who, just six days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Bush said he wanted "dead or alive," and who, almost three years later, is still at large.

Reader Frank Grunder e-mailed me a while back to ask: Just when was the last time Bush did actually speak about bin Laden explicitly?

So I did some research (using the very handy and highly recommended Compilation of Presidential Documents database.)

And what I found is that Bush treats bin Laden a lot like those wizards in the Harry Potter books treat He Who Must Not Be Named.

Since the beginning of 2003, in fact, Bush has mentioned bin Laden's name on only 10 occasions. And on six of those occasions it was because he was asked a direct question.

In addition, there were four times when Bush was asked about bin Laden directly but was able to answer without mentioning bin Laden's name himself.

Not once during that period has he talked about bin Laden at any length, or said anything substantive.

During the same period, for comparison purposes, Bush has mentioned former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on approximately 300 occasions.

The last time Bush spoke protractedly about bin Laden was at a March 2003 news conference. Bush was asked then by Kelly Wallace of CNN why he so rarely mentioned bin Laden, and whether bin Laden was, in fact, dead or alive.

Bush's answer: "Well, deep in my heart, I know the man is on the run if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not? We haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.

"Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network is -- his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I've mentioned in my speeches, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death, and he himself tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.

"So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you. . . . I truly am not that concerned about him."

Frank, in answer to your question, the very last time Bush mentioned bin Laden at all was in Illinois, on July 22, where, in passing, he noted that: "Here in Illinois, we convicted a man with a longstanding ties to bin Laden, who had been using a Chicago-area charity called the 'Benevolence International Foundation' to channel money to Islamic militants."

The last time Bush actually spoke about bin Laden -- although it was not by name -- was on July 14, at an event in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, where he took some questions from the audience. A woman in the audience asked: "Do you have an updates on the whereabouts or possible capture of Osama bin Laden?"

Bush replied: "Thank you for bringing that up. I tell you, if I knew, I wouldn't tell you. (Laughter.) I'd be telling our forces which are stationed over there. He's on the run. He is -- he's, best guess, in the remote regions of Pakistan or Afghanistan, up there in kind of the -- in the mountainous regions there, best guess. I really don't know."

Hmmm and you think we would be looking for the leader of the 9/11 attack.......but......no.......this is almost like diplomatic immunity.

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The fact is, he had other agendas, and he never cared about terrorism, nor will he ever care. He is one of the worse "say one thing, do another" presidents we've had in a very long time.

He doesn't care about terrorism...

These liberal loonies are breeding like gerbils.

The 9/11 commission for one thing wouldn't be saying we are no safer than we were prior to 9/11. That's a big reason right there that proves he has done squat to protect against terrorism. The fact that he went to war with a country short after 9/11 that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 also proves this point. He has wasted billions of dollars that could have been used to either locate bin laden or to simply increase the amount of security we have in case of another attack. He didn't care, he doesn't care. Face it, your so-called leader is the loony.

bush says the war on terror is bigger than one man...

except...

we got 130,000 troops in iraq to get one man.

nope
nothing wrong that logic at all!

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Thomas Kean for President!


there's what mccain says...then there's what JP5 says mccain says

The enemy is Emmanuel Goldstein, and I hate, hate, hate him. Hey, let's have a parade! LOL

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Great thread!

Very interesting, I think.

I don't know... we seem to have established somehow a long standing tradition for politicians to say one thing and do another...

Wonder how we can begin to break it...

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I didn't know you could stack BS this high.

Why just look at your beloved leader...Bush holds the record for stacking BS to its maximum potential, and come November it will all come toppling over onto him.