A Rough Week For President Bush

CBS News Web site ^ | October 29, 2004 | By David Paul Kuhn,

[RecallMoran]

The airing of a tape of Osama bin Laden capped a week of bad news for President Bush that threatened to derail his candidacy in the final days of the presidential election.

For Mr. Bush, it was one piece of bad news after another – reporting of hundreds of tons of explosives looted in Iraq, tens of billions more for the war. And late this afternoon, a tape of bin Laden airing nationwide, where America’s chief adversary appears in good health and secure.

Even before the latest bin Laden tape, Sen. John Kerry had put President Bush on the defensive in the final week of the presidential election.

Outside of there being an “October Surprise,” the frenzied week did underline Kerry’s indictment of Mr. Bush: that the president mismanaged the war in Iraq and took the eye off the “real threat ” -- al Qaeda. Meanwhile, it seemingly undermined Mr. Bush’s message that the war effort was proceeding as planned and that the invasion of Iraq did not siphon resources from the Afghan war on al Qaeda and its leader bin Laden.

“I can’t believe the president or his campaign would have wanted to spend the last week of the election playing defense, answering questions for his mismanagement of the war in Iraq, having to deal with the serious facts on the ground of what happened there,” said Kerry's chief strategist Tad Devine, in a conference call with reporters Friday.

Speaking prior to the release of the bin Laden tape, Devine said the week’s events have hurt the Bush-Cheney campaign because it supported the Democratic nominee’s criticism that Mr. Bush did “rush recklessly into war with no plan to win the peace.”

On Monday, The New York Times and CBS News reported that 377 tons of highly explosive material was looted from a munitions complex apparently left unguarded by U.S. troops.

After days of back-and-forth between the two campaigns, Mr. Bush fired back Wednesday, saying that Kerry was “denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in the field without knowing the facts.” Vice President Dick Cheney insisted the explosives were gone by the time U.S. troops reached the weapons site. The Pentagon attempted to substantiate the claim.

But after a Minneapolis ABC affiliate broadcasted a time-stamped video Wednesday night showing U.S. troops at the facility nine days after the fall of Baghdad, the Bush-Cheney campaign defense seemingly unraveled.

“[The candidates] were like opposite ends of a pole, and as each attacked the other they would be more dug in, in what for each are ridiculous positions,” said former U.N. weapons inspector David Albright, president of a nuclear disarmament think tank in Washington, the Institute for Science and International Security.

“[The Bush-Cheney argument] that the high explosives weren’t there when the troops got there – and remember the Pentagon floats that picture yesterday implying that but the satellite photo says nothing – it’s absurd,” Albright said.

Yet the former arms inspector is critical of Kerry as well. While Albright said “the looting is symptomatic of inadequate troop protection and lack of concern about monitored items by the U.N.,” he added “Kerry clung to that too much.

“It’s one thing in the heat of the moment to say 'Well, this could have killed our troops.' But then you want to step back and say let’s find out,” Albright said. “But the political conflict made it very hard for anybody to step back.”

Still, there is no concrete indication that the bad news this week had tangibly damaged President Bush’s chances at reelection. Bush-Cheney Campaign Chief Strategist Matt Dowd, in fact, said the campaign's own tracking polls show this week’s events have helped Mr. Bush.

“If the question is the war on terror, if the question is Iraq, the public has already responded. They support the president by double-digit margins on these issues,” Dowd insisted. “We are comfortable with the discussion this week.”

It is far too early to tell how the airing of the bin Laden tape affects this presidential race. As with the week’s events in Iraq, the news could remind undecided voters that the United States is at war and many Americans could be inclined to stick with the commander in chief who has polled consistently better on national security than Kerry.

Alternatively, the bin Laden tape, combined with news of hundreds of tons of missing munitions, may also bring to bare questions regarding whether Mr. Bush “rushed to war” in Iraq without sufficiently planning, as his Democratic opponent claims. Consistently, about half of Americans have disapproved of the war.

Bin Laden's message, broadly translated, was in part that "Sept. 11 would have been less severe if Bush had been alert." It is unclear when the al Qaeda leader recorded the message. Apparently speaking directly to the American people, bin Laden added that "Bush still practices deception and is misleading you."

In a rare showing of unity among the competing candidates, Mr. Bush and Sen. Kerry both denounced the tape.

“As Americans we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists,” the Democratic nominee said. “They are barbarians.”

President Bush told reporters that “Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country.” Mr. Bush added that “we are at war with these terrorists” and that he was “confident that we will prevail.”

The final week, in all, was a striking reminder of how this longest of presidential elections was dominated by one issue: national security.

With Democrats admitting that Kerry failed to captivate voters, they point out that polling suggests the Democratic nominee did successfully present himself as a viable alternative.

It leaves a presidential election where the winner could be decided by the very issue political observers throughout the year predicted it would be: Americans view of how Mr. Bush’s handled of the war in Iraq, as well as the larger war on terrorism. And if voters disapprove, the questions remains, should the commander in chief be fired?

Speaking to CBS, Dowd remains confident. “We think we have a slight wind at our back,” he said. Though, the chief strategist for Mr. Bush bases his optimism on polling. He would not speculate on how Americans would react to the bin Laden tape so close to the Nov. 2 election.

But for political observers, the week certainly seemed to work to Mr. Kerry’s advantage. The inclination was that for the final week to be saturated with questions belying Mr. Bush’s effectiveness as commander in chief – specifically when he had stacked his reelection on such – it would likely damage President Bush’s hopes for reelection.

“This will help [Kerry] with some voters; the question is how many voters,” said Leo Ribbuffo, a presidential historian at George Washington University.

“But for those who are worried about Bush’s competence as a war manager, they will sway,” he added. “This does underscore Kerry’s message that whatever your view on Bush’s justification for the war, he has bungled it.”

[grounhog]

I will watch cbs election coverage nov. 2 to see Dan R. suffer.....

[grounhog]

I will watch cbs election coverage nov. 2 to see Dan R. suffer.....

[stockstrader]

It looks lilke Kerry lucked out BIG TIME.

When the totally phoney-baloney 'missing weapons' story came out,,,,Kerry made some political gains for a few days. Then as the story was being analyzed and being shown to be TOTALLY BOGUS--the Bin Laden video comes out--just as the Kerry campaign has decided that they have gotten as much mileage out of the BOGUS story as they could anyway.

The video has taken the phoney 'missing weapons' story off the front page--BEFORE it started back-firing on Kerry. It looks like he lucked out BIG TIME!

It's now 'yesterday's news'--just look at how much the discussion on the topic has dried up on FreeRepublic. After the Pentagon briefing today,,,,the phoney weapons story should get top billing--and it's not even close.

[Vision]

The airing of a tape of Osama bin Laden capped a week of bad news for President Bush that threatened to derail his candidacy in the final days of the presidential election.

What planet are they on?

[Shortstop7]

Wouldn't Condi against Hillary be fun to watch?

[RecallMoran]

Find "The Vision of the Annointed" by Thomas Sowell (I may not have spelled everything right) But he gives an excellent history of how this extreme/socialist/anti-religious establishment got started in America. It, at least, gives you a point of reference for the beginnings of this movement and it's goals. The movement has to destroy the family, nationalism/patriotism, social mores and ties, and religion to achieve it's goals. Everything we see out of the MSM who have styled themselves as the intelligencia and conscience of the nation corresponds to the philosophy of the worldwide socialists as described by Sowell. Interesting.

[alrea]

COULD THEY BE ANY MORE TRANSPARENT?

COULD THEY BE ANY MORE TRANSPARENT?The poll on the CBS sight says the OBL video hurts Bush. Am I blind or just too far gone?

[RecallMoran]

In 1968 I was 5 years old and I remember my dad telling my sister's long haired hippy freak war protesting boyfriend: "Just because CBS and the Washington Post say it's true, doesn't make it so. They are as communist as the soviets. Try to understand that they have an agenda and question why they are saying what they are saying."

The boyfriend is now her husband of 35 years and hates Kerry for abusing the returning vets even if the war was wrong. Maybe he listened.

[RecallMoran]

The polls results are DU types and those that still go to CBS for news. 100% idiot

[feedback doctor]

This is from scrappleface.com, right. I can see the cBS story on Wednesday. "Mr. Bush's problems seem to mount. After winning only 308 electoral votes, and 52% of the popular votes, he'll start January with no real mandate."

[feedback doctor]

And late this afternoon, a tape of bin Laden airing nationwide

That thing on oSama's head looks an awful lot like my Christmas tree stand. It better be back in my attic by Dec 1st!

[feedback doctor]

The fact that Osama aired a tape where he declares Bush a threat to terrorists is good news

Saw one commentator suggesting that people will see this as oSama trying to affect the election, and those people who see that, will also see that he is probably doing the video tape thing because he doesn't have the capability to do something big. And people who realize that will realize why he can't do the big thing.

[texasmountainman]

This story was probably written last weekend with a last minute addtion of the part about of the Usama tape.

I'm sure they had high hopes for their "ambush" this week with the explosives story, which blew up in their own faces.

[hershey]

Typical CBS baloney. You have to wonder what they're drinking over there. By the way, how are they holding up over in DUmmie underground? Probably they think the CIA has bin Laden holed up in a Motel 6 outside DC, and that the tape is the precourser to GW's parading him in chains down Pennsylvania Ave. Sunday afternoon.

[feedback doctor]

What I wish upon these traitors is not at all very Christian......or is it?

Look at history, God's worst judgement is usually letting people have what they want. Israel wanted to go after false gods, and they wound up in Babylon, in slavery.

[snooker]

see-BS has got the butt monkey really bad.

[feedback doctor]

Nothing from CBS should surprise us anymore. How I positively hate those people.

I would not be suprised to see them do an actual endorsment of kErry.

[Clinging Bitterly]

It's as though bin Laden is running his very own 527, and, like Soros, is shilling for Kerry.

Why do you suppose he wants Kerry to win?

(Anyone?)

[Clinging Bitterly]

I suppose it's because terrorism is cheap news for them, news they don't have to make up.

For some reason I did click the link at the top of the thread and looked over a few of DNCBS's stories. Talk of things tightening, trending for Kerry, all of that.

The fact is, throughout the past month there have been only a couple of national polls that put Kerry ahead (though still inside the margin for error), there has been only one, ever, that put him at 50%, and of the current national polls, he leads none of them.

Nobody knows for sure, but nobody ever does. The polls sample sometimes around 1000, though often fewer, "likely voters" among those who answer the phone out of the whole country. Their model of America doesn't account for a lot of things going on these days that can skew that. At our house, we use call blocking and caller ID - we block unidentified calls and we don't answer calls from numbers we don't recognize. That's just one example of the complication of attitudes and technologies that tend to dilute the value of polls - they are becoming more "self selecting" every day, whether we like it or not (and I don't really care).

Like the whores that they are, they will do what they must to sell their services, and just as they vet, weigh, and select the responders to obtain the result they think they should be getting, on November 3 (or whenever it's all settled) they'll hold up their best work of the year in front of the the media and political consultant industries to sell their useless product for yet another political season.

Bad week for Bush my ass.

[MeekOneGOP]

..... They don't give up do they?

No kidding. :^O

---

Media Research Center:
Dan Ra^ther on Bill Clinton:
"I think he’s an honest man."

   O’Reilly: "I want to ask you flat out, do you think President Clinton’s an honest man?"
    Ra^ther: "Yes, I think he’s an honest man."
    O’Reilly: "Do you, really?"
    Ra^ther: "I do."
    O’Reilly: "Even though he lied to Jim Lehrer’s face about the Lewinsky case?"
    Ra^ther: "Who among us has not lied about something?"
    O’Reilly: "Well, I didn’t lie to anybody’s face on national television. I don’t think you have, have you?"
    Ra^ther: "I don’t think I ever have. I hope I never have. But, look, it’s one thing-"
    O’Reilly, jumping in: "How can you say he’s an honest guy then?"
    Ra^ther: "Well, because I think he is. I think at core he’s an honest person. I know that you have a different view. I know that you consider it sort of astonishing anybody would say so, but I think you can be an honest person and lie about any number of things."
    O’Reilly: "Really?!?"
    Ra^ther: "Yeah, I do."
    O’Reilly: "See, I can’t. I want my government to be honest across-the-board. I don’t want people lying."

---