{"id":12807,"date":"2007-09-07T16:50:00","date_gmt":"2007-09-07T20:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/12807.html"},"modified":"2007-09-07T16:50:00","modified_gmt":"2007-09-07T20:50:00","slug":"catching-bin-laden-or-not-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/catching-bin-laden-or-not-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching bin Laden (or not)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The release of the latest video<\/a> notwithstanding, I am a little confused about the Republicans’ attitude when it comes to Osama bin Laden.<\/p>\n

Take Fred Thompson’s reaction<\/a> to today’s news, for example. (via the DNC<\/a>)<\/p>\n

“Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else,” he said. “I think it demonstrates to people once again that we’re in a global war.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Symbolism”? We’re talking about a terrorist who orchestrated the murder of 3,000 Americans. Why take such a lackadaisical attitude?<\/p>\n

For that matter, why do high-profile Republicans keep<\/i> taking such a lackadaisical attitude?
\n
\nIn April, Mitt Romney also took a rather passive attitude<\/a> towards the terrorist responsible for 9\/11.<\/p>\n

[Romney] said the country would be safer by only \u201ca small percentage\u201d and would see \u201ca very insignificant increase in safety\u201d if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. \u201cIt\u2019s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,\u201d Romney said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I think I know what Romney meant, but it certainly sounded<\/i> as if he were saying capturing the architect of the 9\/11 attacks is too expensive<\/i>. We looked for him, we let him go at Tora Bora, and now bringing him to justice has proven to be a big hassle. Better to just move on.<\/p>\n

To borrow a page from the Republicans’ rhetorical playbook, isn’t this a “defeatist” attitude? For a party that’s supposed to be “tough” on terror, isn’t this kind of complacency about a mass-murdering head of a massive terrorist network conveying the wrong kind of message to our enemies?<\/p>\n

Eric Kleefeld argued<\/a> at the time that a Democratic candidate saying the exact same thing would probably generate national outrage. I suspect that’s right, which is why it’s even more interesting that Romney’s remarks seemed to go almost completely unnoticed.<\/p>\n

As, I suspect, Thompson’s will. If Obama said it, it’d be a “gaffe.” If Edwards said, it’d be a sign of “weakness.” But when Thompson and Romney take a dismissive attitude about Osama bin Laden, it hardly raises an eyebrow.<\/p>\n

Maybe people are less concerned about OBL than I realize. Six months after the 9\/11 attacks, the president who once vowed to get Osama bin Laden “dead or alive” suddenly found the terrorist pass\u00e9. Far from a commitment to bringing bin Laden to justice, Bush announced<\/a>, “I truly am not that concerned about him.”<\/p>\n

Neither, apparently, is Thompson or Romney. At what point did the GOP decide that bin Laden no longer matters?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The release of the latest video notwithstanding, I am a little confused about the Republicans’ attitude when it comes to Osama bin Laden. Take Fred Thompson’s reaction to today’s news, for example. (via the DNC) “Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else,” he said. “I think it demonstrates to people once again that we’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}