President Bush was in office for nine months.
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Actually, he was in office for less than eight months. People always want to stretch the truth if it will affect President Bush badly. If we say seven and a half months, it sounds much less time to get on the ball regarding bin Laden, doesn't it.
I think it was 234 days.
This bears repeating.
Also, the damage done to the Presidency by the Lewinski affair, the questions about Vince Foster's 'suicide', Paula Jones, Jennifer Flowers, the White House travel office railroading of Billy Dale, Whitewater, FBI files, missing Rose Law firm billing records, the auctioning of the Lincoln bedroom, Juanita Broderick, and many others, and the last of which was the challenges to the 2000 election results, all contributed to emboldening al qaeda. And the ABC story implied that the opposition party was to blame for the distraction - not the President himself.