Don't Try to Catch Bin Laden

[Doug]

Inside the Oval Office
President Bush gives journalists a "heads up" about the mid-term elections, among other things.
by Fred Barnes, The Daily Standard
09/13/2006

WE NOW KNOW WHY the Bush administration hasn't made the capture of Osama bin Laden a paramount goal of the war on terror. Emphasis on bin Laden doesn't fit with the administration's strategy for combating terrorism. Here's how President Bush explained this Tuesday: "This thing about . . . let's put 100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work."

Rather, Bush says there's a better way to stay on offense against terrorists. "The way you win the war on terror," Bush said, "is to find people [who are terrorists] and get them to give you information about what their buddies are fixing to do." In a speech last week, the president explained how this had worked--starting with the arrest and interrogation of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheik Muhammad--to break up a terrorist operation that was planning post-9/11 attacks on America.

...At the outset of the interview, which occurred the morning after his speech to the nation on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Bush declared: "I've never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions."

An unusual aspect of the session was the president's request for some of his remarks to be considered off the record. Nevertheless, several of these comments were reported anyway, including his observation that he senses a new spiritual awakening in the country. That view, he indicated, is at least partly based on the many times average citizens tell him they are praying for him.

Read the rest here.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

That little hint about gas prices is right up there with "my brother promised me Florida" - watch out for the scam that's coming. As if the Sauds haven't dumped enough petroleum to drop prices into the market in October of every election year since America outran her ability to cover her fuel needs domestically. As for the rest of his speech - I should read these things - they make my stomach hurt if it's empty and nauseous if it's full.

Be interesting to see how he'd testify - say against Karl Rove - if he was waterboarded. Be even more interesting to see how he'd testify under those circumstances if the questioner was "leading the witness". I'd bet money he'd testify for Bill Clinton under those circumstances. But then, he's always been the "hazer" not the "hazee".