Suskind Says CIA Says OBL Wanted Bush to Win in 2004
Haven't read the book, dunno what the evidence looks like. Wish I could have seen the evidence with info that would distinguish between Bush and Kerry redacted before hearing the conclusion. I, of course, think that OBL would have been a fool not to root for Bush. Bush is the best thing that hever happened to al Qaeda. Had Al Gore been president in 2001, OBL would be a smudge on the floor of a cave in Tora Bora. Bush's irrational actions have kept al Qaeda in the game far longer than any sane person could have predicted. I'd bet large amounts of money that they wanted Bush to win.
Suskind's claim is apparently that the CIA has drawn the same conclusion, though I don't know what their reasons are like. But they know more than we do, so if this is, in fact, their conclusion then it's probably the best guess we have.
Haven't read the book, dunno what the evidence looks like. Wish I could have seen the evidence with info that would distinguish between Bush and Kerry redacted before hearing the conclusion. I, of course, think that OBL would have been a fool not to root for Bush. Bush is the best thing that hever happened to al Qaeda. Had Al Gore been president in 2001, OBL would be a smudge on the floor of a cave in Tora Bora. Bush's irrational actions have kept al Qaeda in the game far longer than any sane person could have predicted. I'd bet large amounts of money that they wanted Bush to win.
Suskind's claim is apparently that the CIA has drawn the same conclusion, though I don't know what their reasons are like. But they know more than we do, so if this is, in fact, their conclusion then it's probably the best guess we have.
posted by Winston Smith at
8:08 PM
12 Comments:
Ah. Back when Al Gore was still a statesman. Perhaps I judge him too harshly. Perhaps if he'd become president, he would have kept his sanity.
Tom, I think I must be missing something - is there something in that speech that should cause us to dislike or mistrust Al Gore? As it is, it reads remarkably sane to me.
Sorry, I meant to include that it was a fine speech. By statesmanlike, I meant that even if one doesn't agree with it chapter and verse, it is inclusive, according respect and itself worthy of respect.
Haven't heard anything like it in years. I could vote for a guy who gave such a speech, even if I disagreed with him.
Sooo... You link to a good speech, and then simply assert that Gore is no longer a statesman... Devistating!
If only Al could be as statesmanlike as Dubya...
You're gonna lose this one, dude.
aven't heard anything like it in years. I could vote for a guy who gave such a speech, even if I disagreed with him.
Tom, have you seen "An Inconvenient Truth"? The tone is nearly identical to the speech you linked.
You're kidding, right?
I mean, I didn't even get out to the new Keanu Reeves movie yet.
:-D
I was thinking more of Gore's rant against Bush at the top of his lungs a year or two ago to moveon.org or whoever.
It strikes me that the Kososphere's lust for red meat has steered Democratic Party leaders away from statesmanship of late, which is why Gore's 2002 speech seemed so, well, remarkable. Just four years ago and it seems like a million.
Yeah, fair enough, I'd generally prefer to see, say, the new Pixar movie rather than AIT myself. ;)
That said, setting aside the question of if the turn away from statesmanship happened in a vacuum or not, I think it's worth pointing out that no politician's tone is perfectly represented by a single speech - never has been, never will be. Just as Gore was and is capable of giving both formal, toned-down speeches and barn-burners, so was Truman, or Lincoln, or anybody else you care to name. That's part of the reason I wasn't ready to give up on Dean immediatly after "the scream".
Just because the Kos folks have gone rather loony doesn't mean that everyone who's outraged by Bush is a loony.
In fact, I'd say that anyone who ISN'T outraged by Bush is missing something fairly profound.
Try the handy "turned tables" test. Imagine how nuts the righties would be if we had a Democratic president half as extremist, half as incompetent, half as divisive as Bush. Imagine that a Democratic president had lead us into this war with the same shifting rationales, ultimately settling on human rights as the main justification.
That imaginary president would have certainly been impeached by now, and probably shot.
Actually, Dean got a bum deal on The Scream. However, it was consistent with his loose cannonship, and so fed the narrative.
By contrast, The Scream might have got the dour Kerry elected.
WS, there's certainly no arguing with that. No sane person would try.
I don't see that Gore has been that much influenced by that wing of the 'net lefties.
Though I agree that their influence is troublesome.
What's MORE troublesome, though, is that the Democrats are STILL the only rational option. I mean, think about that for a minute...
*shudder*
it was consistent with his loose cannonship, and so fed the narrative.
This repeats the media elite's self-preserving conventional wisdom for why they screwed Dean. Their rationalization for rank smearing of Gore is that he is inauthentic, nevermind that Duhbya doesn't have a natural bone in his body.
What's MORE troublesome, though, is that the Democrats are STILL the only rational option. I mean, think about that for a minute...
This is troublesome for you, WS, only because you have not escaped the emperor's narrative. The Democrats are occasionally saying that Duhbya has no clothes, but they are still troublesome. TVD cannot be appeased by a pox on both their houses. You and the media should have figured that long ago.
What issues are Democrats less responsible on? When to make war? Security at home? Deficit? Tax policy? Liberty? Stewardship of the environment? Policing? Disaster response and relief? International engagement? The rule of law? Torture? Economic fairness?
Yet they're troublesome. I don't get it.
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