The Unnamed Enemy
washingtonpost.com
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."
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."
MY COMMENT: Bush vows to "bring an enemy to justice before they hurt us again." Then Bush says I am not that concerned with Bin Laden. WTF???? |
