Eleanor Clift: Expect GOP to frighten Nov. voters with "The Osama Card"

[Human Torch]

The Osama Card
Expect the Republicans to use the specter of the terror leader to frighten voters ahead of the elections.

By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 10:23 a.m. MT Aug 18, 2006

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14410491/site/newsweek/



Aug. 18, 2006 - It will soon be five years since the 9/11 attacks thrust America into a state of perpetual anxiety, and the man who inspired and masterminded the carnage that awful day remains at large. He’s almost certainly in Pakistan, way up on the northern border, almost to China, and with the November elections approaching, the name of Osama bin Laden will once again surface as a powerful symbol of who’s with us and who’s against us.

A Republican Senate hopeful in New York is already linking Hillary Clinton to Osama in a television ad that attacks Clinton for voting against the Patriot Act and speaking out against the administration’s unauthorized wiretapping. Former Yonkers mayor John Spencer has no chance of unseating the New York senator, but for Democrats, Osama is the wild card. They remember how he surfaced in a video the weekend before the ’04 presidential election, reminding the country of 9/11 and helping turn fearful voters toward President Bush, who was seen as the tougher of the two candidates.

Now Democrats have a good chance of winning back one or both houses of Congress, and they’re wondering whether this election’s October surprise could be capturing Osama. Peter Bergen, one of the few Western journalists to interview the terrorist leader, spoke at a panel in Washington this week after a preview screening of a new CNN documentary, “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden.” Bergen said the administration has a pretty good idea where bin Laden is—based in part on the vegetation that appears in his video. Bergen also wondered why, with all the money the administration is spending, it isn’t staking out the offices of the Al-Jazeera offices where the tapes are dropped off for more clues to Osama’s whereabouts.

Bush once vowed to capture bin Laden dead or alive. Now he and Karl Rove only haul him out when he’s politically useful. Bin Laden has been eclipsed and overtaken by Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah and the new voice of Arab anger. Bergen was asked, “If Osama is eliminated, what then?” He replied that “Binladenism” is the worry now, and it’s far more dangerous than the man himself. It’s unlikely that bin Laden would be taken alive. He has said repeatedly, “Better a grave than an American prison.” Martyrdom is such a powerful force in the Arab world that death would only enhance bin Laden’s mythical status.

[Demobrat]

1. The Dem response should be that

these people have had five years to catch Osama and have failed. The question is which is it? Are they incompetent, or are they unwilling to give up such a handy-dandy villian with which to threaten us into line?

[terrya]

3. Yep.

That's exactly what the Dem response should be. We've had 5 years to find him...and we're no closer than before. Oh, wait...we had "higher priorities" in Iraq.

[Human Torch]

4. Yes, Saddam had WMDs and was prepared to use them.

But even though we know now that he really didn't, we can take refuge in the fact that his ambitions "will not take the form of a mushroom cloud," that there are no more rape rooms, we were greeted as liberators, and Iraqi oil paid for the short and successful war. Mission Accomplished!

:patriot:

The Web Site Iraq Body Count reports between 40557 and 45104 Civilians reported killed by military intervention in Iraq.

[stepnw1f]

2. Speaking Of Osama....Where Is He?

And why did Bush let him go in Tora Bora?

[HockeyMom]

5. They probably already have him

and are waiting for the most opportune time (right before election) to parade him out.

Can you say I don't trust anything they do anymore?

[Cha]

11. Like Halloween

suprise? The only problem with the rover method of politics is that it's gotten old after 5 fucking years.

[elehhhhna]

6. HIL should hijack that commercial,

run it with her own voiceover EVISCERATING The Republicans. When OBL appears she should say "I WILL DEMAND WE COMMIT OUR RESOURCES TO CAPTURING THIS MAN" etc.

[Skittles]

7. four soldiers were killed in Afghanistan today

bush took resources away from Afghanistan to start the quagmire in Iraq - Dems need to remind the voters of this

[AX10]

8. "Why did George W. Bush let Osama off the hook?"

That should be the question that the Democrats ask at every turn.

[KittyWampus]

13. Why did Bush give Osama what he demanded- US troops out of Saudi Arabia?

[calimary]

9. This is good, actually. I'm glad this stuff is getting out there in the

mainstream. It's the kind of thing that NEEDS TO BE SAID. It NEEDS to be out there where other people can see, hear, and read it, and start talking among themselves. Sometimes stuff like this needs to be seen, heard, and read, to help verify and validate what the seer, listener or reader was thinking, or tempted to think, but maybe didn't want to go there - because they might be fearful of being alone in this thinking. You know, the old "I must be crazy!" syndrome. If suddenly you notice this same thought of yours is getting a hearing elsewhere, that somebody else brings it up independently of you, then your first reaction might be - "gee, maybe I'm NOT crazy, after all!"

This is good. VERY beneficial for our side! It's about time this was spoken about, openly. It fuels the old "reasonable doubt" suspicions. AND it feeds those who subscribe to the belief that - "well, they can't say it if it weren't true," or "if it's in the papers/Newsweek/on the air, it must be true, 'eh?"

Good-good-good! This needs to be said, read, and spread - so LOTS of people are thinking it. The better to blunt the impact when the bad guys DO pull Osama out of a hat for their own political gain.

[Cha]

10. I never realized that Amercians

were such frightened little chickens! :scared: :scared: :scared: What does that say about our country if we should get attacked like bush bombed Iraq?

[hijinx87]

12. I have decided that the shrubsters don't want to catch osama

he is more valuable as a tool to manipulate elections.