Bush, Kerry Spar Over Bin Laden Video (Kerry calls 9/11 a "raid")

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - John Kerry criticized President Bush on Friday for failing to capture Osama bin Laden as a new videotape of the terrorist leader surfaced just before the election. Bush accused the Democrat of "shameful" second-guessing in the face of threats by America's deadly foe.

The broadcast of the bin Laden tape jolted the campaign's closing days, accentuating the terrorism theme with a reminder of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and Kerry revived his contention that Bush missed an opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden during the Afghan war.

"I believe I can run a more effective war on terror than George Bush," Kerry asserted.

Bush told an Ohio rally: "My opponent continues to say things he knows are not true." He said, "It's especially shameful in light of the new tape from America's enemy."

"Let me make this very clear," Bush said in Toledo, Ohio, standing next to Air Force One. "Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country. I'm sure Senator Kerry agrees with this."

Kerry, too, said, "My reaction is that all of us ... are completely united." But he criticized Bush for not capturing bin Laden earlier, and he added pointedly, "I believe I can run a more effective war on terror than George Bush."

Kerry has asserted throughout the campaign that U.S. forces could have run down bin Laden in the Tora Bora mountains in late 2001 if they had gone after him on the ground, and he has blamed Bush for the decision to let Afghan forces lead that chase.

"He didn't choose to use American forces to hunt down Osama bin Laden," Kerry said in an interview with WISN in Milwaukee. "He outsourced the job."

Bush responded, at a rally in Columbus, Ohio: "It's the worst kind of Monday-morning quarterbacking," and he quoted his Afghan war commander, the now-retired Gen. Tommy Franks, as saying intelligence reports at the time were unclear about bin Laden's whereabouts.

It was unclear what if any impact bin Laden hoped to have on the U.S. election. While Bush vowed four years ago to get bin Laden "dead or alive," he now rarely mentions the terrorist leader, speaking mostly about deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, blamed for beheadings and other violence in Iraq.

On the videotape, aired by the Arab television station Al-Jazeera, bin Laden addresses Americans: "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands."

Bush said intelligence officials continued to analyze the tape. The administration said it believed the tape was authentic and had been made recently.

The president said, "We are at war with these terrorists and I am confident that we will prevail."

"As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists," Kerry said in Florida, standing next to his campaign plane. "They are barbarians, and I will stop at absolutely nothing to hunt down, capture or kill the terrorists wherever they are, whatever it takes, period.

But he went on, in the radio interview, to question Bush's judgment in the Tora Bora chase and to say he would do a better job keeping the United States safe.

"Democrat, Republican, there's no such thing," Kerry said. "There's just America and we are all united in hunting down and capturing or killing those who conducted that raid and we always knew that that was Osama bin Laden."

"My policy is there's no such thing as negotiation with terrorists," the Democratic candidate said. "And terrorists, terrorism are going to be hunted down and killed, we are united on that."

Americans are divided on whether bin Laden is likely to be captured - ever. Four in 10 say no. People are also split on whether it is essential to capture him to successfully conclude the war on terrorism.

Bin Laden's remarks quickly overshadowed the scripted campaign events of the day for both the president and his Democratic rival, injecting new uncertainty into a race already difficult to predict.

With Bush and his wife Laura behind him on the stage in Ohio, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the spirited rally that the president was is "defending this country with all his heart and soul."

"America is back," he said. "America's back from the attack on our homeland, we are back from the attack on our economy, and we are back from the attack on our own way of life."

Increasingly, both sides have turned their attention to mobilizing for Election Day, hoping that intense voter registration drives would swell Tuesday's turnout to record levels. In Ohio, Republicans lost a court appeal to block tens of thousands of voter registrations.

Candidates for 34 Senate seats and all 435 House seats campaigned through the final few days of their races, as well. Republicans are favored to retain their majority in the House. Aides to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in South Dakota said they had identified all of the estimated 10,000 undecided voters in his state by name, underscoring the closeness of his campaign for re-election.

Osama finally comes out from his cave Outer Mongolia with his political endorsement. That boring speech had so many Michael Mooreon quotes, he must be getting the Old York Times delivered?? Yawn said that he had world leaders who were hoping that he would become President and now we know who he was talking about. Since he could have easily captured this murderer, he must have been in constant communication. After all, Yaawn Cut & Run Kerry is the most brilliant Armchair General and Monday Morning QB in the Country. Komrade Kerry knows everything about everything, just ask him a veritable Cliff Claven.

The first moment that Yaawn hears about Osama bin Hidin threatening the United States election and it’s people what is Yaawn’s response? Does he state we are unified in defeating this animal? No, he piles on the military, America and the President to score the cheapest of political points. This fits him like a T, he hates the military, America and the President with every vote he has cast or speech given. In unscripted moments, the true John Kerry comes out, the one we saw in 1971, he says that the military failed to catch Osama. Fact is, if Kerry, Clinton or Gore were presidents we would not have even been in Afghanistan. They all said that it was going to be another Vietnam and none of them had the spine to attack a sovereign country. So Osama would still be in his compounds outside of Kabul training terrorists for the next American attack.

We have the country’s most vile enemy attacking our President and our people and what is the first thing out of his mouth. “I would have captured or killed Osama!” What a piece of garbage to make an empty statement when this terrorist is threatening our women and children. First, track records for Rat CIC’s in war is very weak, but assuming he would have let the dogs loose and he ever got to the point our troops got to in Tora Bora, how you going to smoke him out? This is the most inaccessible land in the world. 20,000 foot mountains in the roadless areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan, tell us how YOU would catch him Yaawn??

Comrade Kerry is always the first to criticize our troops, but he never tells us exactly what he can do better. Our main mistake in Tora Bora was we became too sensitive to the terrorists and gave them a cease fire to surrender which is when they escaped. That is what Comrade Kerry would do in Iraq and is why Osama endorsed him. He is tired of raising goats in Outer Mongolia. He wants back in the game like when BJ clinton was treating him like a “nuisance” and is pining for a Kerry return to those days.

He misses the days when he could blow up or murder Americans at will and we would treat it like a police action. Threaten to hunt them down and kill them anywhere, any time yada, yada, yada and then wait for the next attack. He misses the days when the military option was not an option and our military was a meals-on-wheels brigade and no threat to Osama. Yeah, he is hoping and praying that Comrade Kerry will get elected and bring back the good ol days for terrorism when American blood flowed freely in the streets.

George W Bush changed all that! He told the military to sick-um and they did. Now terrorists are either dead or hiding for fear of their lives. Osama has not been able to attack this country once and is losing dozens of men a day. He knows that after GW is elected he is a dead man. He knows that the military is the finest and brightest military in the history of the world. He knows that GW will let the military adapt and destroy with an efficiency that he cannot match. He knows that his only chance of survival now is to get Yaawn elected. He knows that if President Bush is elected he will end up on the Ash Heap of History. Let’s pray America figures out what Osama has.

So in desperation he gives a rambling, long winded monotone speech that was laced heavily with attacks on the President and our military with wild claims from Michael Moore to fire-up his base. Pretty much a Yaawn Cut & Run stump speech who is now his number one fan so Blood will run once again in America’s streets.

Pray for W and Our Election

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